


The Terrors of Interdisciplinary Research

by JennaCupcakes



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Slow Burn, except they're all grumpy professors, the precarity of academic employment as a plot device
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:34:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 38,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25829746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JennaCupcakes/pseuds/JennaCupcakes
Summary: (or: Professor John Franklin’s Horrible Retirement Present)Francis Crozier wants tenure. James Fitzjames wants to finish his professorial qualification thesis. The postdocs just want to sleep.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 117
Kudos: 102
Collections: The Terror Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’m so glad I finally get to share this with the world. This is the brain child of me missing campus during the last semester of my degree, and the decision I made: instead of being sad, I would write a fic about it. The second part of my original idea was the discovery that German academia and Victorian society have a lot more in common than you’d think. Does that mean it’s set in Germany? Who knows, the text is kind of vague on the subject. Any similarities to German cities are purely coincidental. 
> 
> Some of the titles and so forth in this fic are things that you won’t necessarily encounter in an Anglo-American academic context, so I’ve compiled a glossary in the author’s notes at the end. There you’ll also find a list of side pairings and a number of small content warnings.
> 
> I was so honoured to work together with the amazing [vandrawsing](https://vandrawsing.tumblr.com/). At the first concept art, I screamed in delight, and it’s very possible that I never stopped. I cannot put into words how many hours I spent looking at the cover art alone. It’s so cool.
> 
> You can find the art [here](https://vandrawsing.tumblr.com/post/627886033748557824).
> 
> Endless thanks to my beta reader—the amazing, inimitable [icicaille](https://twitter.com/icicaille_). Your edits made the story truly shine, and I couldn’t have asked for more wonderful feedback. Any remaining mistakes are entirely my own. 
> 
> Now, by all means, please enjoy the story!

**April 2016**

Francis had forgotten where he’d parked his bike.

This was a realisation he came to at eleven minutes past five pm on the first Monday of the summer semester, as he stood—one arm hanging limply at his side, the other holding the backpack slung over his shoulder—surveying the bike racks in front of the Ross building and realising that his bike was not among those parked there.

It was a functional bike, a little too heavy for the city but sturdy, with a red cover over the saddle. That made it easy to pick out of the crowd of light racing bikes that students preferred, second-hand and rusty as most of them were. Francis kept his bike in good condition.

Which would help him, had he parked it here.

The problem, he thought as he stood facing the bike rack and the parking lot behind it, having admitted defeat but not wanting to face the consequences yet, was the way the campus had been built. Rather than finding an empty plot of land on the outskirts of the city, the university had bought up buildings in the area and converted them into what could loosely be termed ‘campus grounds’ until every institute had been housed and decentralisation elevated to a virtue instead of a pain in the ass. They had three libraries alone because the original building hadn’t been big enough to accommodate the university’s ever-growing collection.

Francis sighed. His bike was probably parked by the administrative building. He’d had a busy day around campus, between a lecture and a department meeting and too many emails from apprehensive students, but he’d talked to Sophia at the administrative building first thing in the morning.

This galled him, because he didn’t want to think of Sophia and the rest of the professorial selection committee. Unfortunately, he was already thinking of both.

_Three years, Francis._

A gust of wind rustled the birch trees and sent a shower of leaves, winter leftovers, cascading to the ground. It was not yet a spring wind. Francis shivered.

_You do this for three years, and I can recommend you for tenure._

Thinking of it, Francis scoffed again. He’d heard something along those lines far too often to still believe it. And yet, shouldering his backpack and setting off to retrieve his bike, he could already feel himself falling into the familiar steps of a well-worn self-delusion; he knew that at least this time, he would choose to believe her again.

* * *

The walk to the administrative building was short, a mere ten minutes from _Ross_. The sun had been out this morning, pleasant weather for a walk, which explained why Francis had left his bike there and not taken it with him when he went from his meeting with Sophia to his morning seminar. Quicker to walk than to go through the trouble of unlocking and locking it again.

Francis found himself following the crowd of students headed for the subway until he took a right at the French café, down the tree-lined street. The administrative building was tucked behind two other buildings that had been built about a hundred years afterwards – the administrative building pre-dated the street, and stubbornly spited the logic and necessities of modern city planning in its placement. It meant that the little courtyard – too narrow for cars – was frequently used for bike parking, student meetings, and department lunches later in the summer, at least until the wasps grew too numerous. Here, at last, Francis spotted the familiar red saddle. He dropped the backpack next to his bike and fumbled out the keys.

“Professor Crozier!”

Francis had just bent down to open the second lock he put around the front tire—overkill, Thomas Blanky often told him, but Francis liked to be safe—when a man called out to him from across the courtyard. Francis could only half look up because his second lock was the one that always got stuck—he should really replace it—but there was no mistaking the stork-like legs for anyone but PD Dr Fitzjames.

With a curse, Francis yanked his lock free, then righted himself. He was sure he looked far more rumpled than the immaculately dressed Fitzjames, whose looks had won him the students’ award for best lecturer three years in a row. Unfortunately, Fitzjames seemed intent on more than a shouted greeting across the courtyard, if the way he strode over to Francis was anything to go by.

“Dr Fitzjames.”

Fitzjames flipped his hair over his shoulder in a way that seemed too effortless to not be practised. His cheeks were a little flushed from his half jog across the courtyard, and his smile appeared flustered, as though at least some part of him was aware of the ridiculousness of his little display.

PD Dr Fitzjames had crossed Francis’s radar once or twice in his time at the university. Francis knew Fitzjames worked in the psychology department, and that he was considered a rising star among his peers—that last fact Francis had learned from an interview with Fitzjames in the university magazine he had read the last time campus Wi-Fi had cut out in the middle of the day.

“I just heard the news!” Fitzjames exclaimed, his exuberance not only showing in his broad grin but also his elaborate gestures. Francis suddenly realized why Fitzjames had run across the courtyard to greet him and why he was so elated.

“Can I assume that congratulations are in order?” he asked, and Fitzjames, blessedly, was too excited to notice the slight tone of sarcasm. Francis took a moment to school his face into something more of a smile.

“John just told me. What an opportunity!”

Francis did his best to match Fitzjames’s mood. “You’re a part of the project as well, then?”

“Yes. John—Professor Franklin—insisted.”

“I’m sure you’ll be a wonderful addition to the team.”

They stood, awkwardly, for a moment—Fitzjames probably realizing that he had nothing in common with Francis besides a shared posting to a research project, the details of which were still so vague Francis would have called it speculative fiction if that wouldn’t get him into trouble with precisely the professorial selection committee he was trying to ingratiate himself with. Fitzjames smiled and nodded once.

Francis nodded back. “I should probably…” he said, motioning to his bike.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to keep you.”

Fitzjames stepped out of the way hastily, the movement made more theatrical than necessary by his incredibly long limbs. He looked like a scarecrow, Francis thought. A well-proportioned scarecrow. With extraordinarily well-styled hair.

“Well… goodbye,” Francis said. Fitzjames shook his hand again, then walked off to the parking lot with a spring in his step while Francis swung a leg over his bike and pedalled off, shaking his head at his own stupidity. Fitzjames was the apple of Franklin’s eye, and Francis couldn’t muster enough social graces for one normal human interaction? No wonder no one on the committee liked him. It wasn’t Fitzjames’s fault that Francis had been pushed into another temporary position he was overqualified for. Fitzjames had never been in Francis’s position.

Still, Francis found he resented Fitzjames for that.

* * *

Shortly before the end of the previous winter lecture period, Francis had received two letters to his office from HR. He’d closed his office door, opened both—though only one was addressed to him—read them, and then poured two whiskeys before he called Thomas Jopson, who had been debugging code next door, into his office. That bottle of whiskey had been in Francis’s office for as long as he could remember, and it was brought out precisely two times a year, always for the same occasion.

They’d toasted to another half-year contract with relief and bitterness, and then Francis had sent Jopson back to work before pouring himself another whiskey, which was unusual. He’d sat in front of his dark computer screen morosely, wondering when he would reach that fabled day when his hope for tenure would be outstripped by his frustration with the _almost_ the administration kept throwing back in his face. He was close, and it seemed like it still meant nothing at all.

That had been one month before his university prevailed in the contest for the interdisciplinary grant, and two months before Sophia, representing the professorial selection committee, had dropped his name at a meeting of the grant management commission. Francis was sure she’d only wanted to do him a favour.

* * *

James Fitzjames spent the first morning of the summer semester wondering why he bothered making plans.

When the call had come up before Christmas 2015 to devise a lecture plan for the summer semester, he had signed up for the lecture he was contractually required to teach, plus two seminars and one thesis colloquium. Considering he was still working on his habilitation thesis, this had seemed a reasonable workload—a little overeager, perhaps, but he knew John was watching him, and he wanted the man to know he was earning his keep in the department.

James’s plan lasted seven hours and thirteen minutes into the summer semester, until John Franklin knocked on his door to demolish the carefully designed schedule with the determined precision of tenured faculty.

“You’ll help me run it, of course. I’ve already submitted your name for fellowship, and they wouldn’t dare fight me on this. Not now.”

This constituted the end of a rather lengthy monologue on John’s part—‘it’ being a prestigious research group the university had acquired funding for, ‘they’ being the grant management commission and the reason nobody would dare defy John, ‘now’ being his impending retirement, which had been on the table for about two years. This would be John’s last great undertaking at the university.

It occurred to James that John never asked him into his office for these kinds of conversations. Instead he preferred to drop by James’s office when convenient, say his piece, and exit the conversation when he wished.

Still, overwhelmed as he was, James could see the absolutely ridiculous amount of luck that had brought him into this position at his age. He wasn’t yet qualified for a full professorship—his habilitation thesis was the last step he needed to take after his dissertation—but John made sure he was appointed to the highest possible positions considering his experience. Advising John Franklin on a prestigious interdisciplinary, government-funded research project? James counted his blessings where he saw them.

“Thank you, John.”

John was studying the little fern on James’s desk with moderate curiosity. He acknowledged James’s thanks with a curt nod and a smile that didn’t reach the eyes—that smile being the reason why, despite his best efforts, John had never had a shot at the chancellorship. He wasn’t a politician, not even in the world of academia, where most everybody was a little odd.

James took a sip from his coffee to bridge the moment’s silence.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for you, James. After you defend your habilitation thesis and qualify for professorship after we wrap up this project, I can step down knowing the department is safe in your hands.”

James only barely managed not to choke on his coffee. Of course he’d hoped—and thought himself foolish for hoping—that John, who had mentored him through his PhD and the following postdoc, who had arranged his posting as a private lecturer on a permanent contract, saw in him some of the qualities necessary to one day run a department such as this. But to hear it spoken so plainly, and on a Monday afternoon just as he saw his field of vision narrow down to the additional tasks that had been dropped in his lap, was almost too much.

“I… thank you,” James said again, a little shell-shocked.

“Don’t thank me. We have yet to get there.” The corner of John’s mouth twitched, and he shook his head. “They said I can’t have a second from my own department. The commission insisted on Professor Crozier. You must have heard of him; he’s the one running that ridiculous data science sub-department.”

James shrugged. He didn’t know Crozier personally, though one of Crozier’s MSc students—was it Peglar?—had sat in on a couple of James’s social psychology lectures. If his student was anything to go by, Crozier was a bright man, though all the data science people intimidated James, who preferred real research to their numbers and abstractions. “It’s still a great opportunity,” he said.

John clapped his hands together. “Excellent. I’ll send the schedule right over. We’ll have our first meeting next week.”

He was gone as quickly as he’d made his first appearance, leaving James completely unable to focus on his lecture slides for the rest of the afternoon. When James got an email from John’s secretary twenty minutes later, he sighed. The meeting overlapped with one of his two seminars.

He opened Blackboard to send an email to his students.

* * *

 _Erebus_ building was a three-story office block that had been erected atop the ruins of a nineteenth-century stable. The manor adjacent to the stable had been torn down in 2003 to make room for the second library building, but somehow the stable had survived that original drive for expansion, which meant that when the university needed land for a new office building, they had found themselves with the perfect plot already in their possession.

 _Erebus_ had been slated for completion in early 2016, which was to say that by April of that year, only two out of three floors were actually completed. Francis learned of this at the inaugural meeting of the Franklin cluster—what their research group had been named in what Francis considered an unparalleled display of humility on the part of Professor Dr John Franklin, head of the cluster.

“We’re moving most of the staff to the new buildings.” Franklin had been in the process of explaining before turning to Francis. Francis, with a sixth sense for when he was about to get fucked over, braced himself. “We decided that, since your servers are the hardest to move, you should remain in _Oterro_ for now. We’ll move you and anyone else in your department attached to the cluster as soon as construction is complete.”

Francis’s lips were a thin line. Everybody else at the meeting table—Professor Dr Franklin and PD Dr Fitzjames, Professor Dr Graham Gore and Professor Dr Stanley—seemed to accept this as a perfectly reasonable course of action. Sometimes Francis was amazed at the new and creative ways the administration invented to humiliate him.

He nodded stoically. “Of course.”

* * *

Francis complained about it copiously not two nights later, on the first Warhammer 40K night of the summer semester.

Thomas Blanky and Francis Crozier had lived together, once upon a time, when they were both nothing more than lowly bachelor students freshly away from home. Their bi-monthly 40K nights were a remnant of that cherished time.

James Ross was also a longstanding member of the table, though they had only met him in their fourth semester, when Francis had taken his first class on machine learning and fallen madly in love with his seat neighbour. Twenty years later, Francis and Ross were no longer madly in love—that had lasted all of two semesters, one of which they had spent in Finland. But he and Thomas were Francis’s best and—Francis often thought bitterly—only friends.

“I didn’t want this position,” he said, to which Thomas replied, “We know.”

Francis should have Thomas tried for mutiny for the look he exchanged with Ross.

“I’m doing this for Sophia, because she _asked_ me—"

Thomas and his blasted tongue-in-cheek grin. Francis was beginning to doubt that his friends were really on his side. “And I might finally get a tenured position out of it.”

“Which is all you’ve ever wanted,” Ross said, ever practical.

“Was that before or after she rejected your grant proposal?” Thomas interjected.

Francis cast Ross a dark look for stating the obvious and ignored Thomas for the same crime. “And then they leave me in _Terror_? I don’t mind, all my stuff is there, but I know what it looks like.”

 _Terror_ was the name the _Oterro_ building had been given in the eighties, when a lack of funding in universities across the country had led to shoddy maintenance of most of the university’s infrastructure. When the first _o_ of _Oterro_ had fallen off, the student self-government had taken it upon themselves to rechristen the building with a more apt name. And although the original act of vandalism had long since been fixed and the name on the building restored, _Terror_ was still what most students called it.

“What does it look like?” Thomas asked, while also using Francis’s distraction to subtly shift his own troops into a more advantageous position. Ross—who had been in on the plan for the last ten minutes—kept Francis engaged by nodding at the right times. He was extremely good at sympathetic expressions.

“It looks like Sophia was wrong, and there will be no tenured position at the end of this. And then I’ll have done a great load of work for nothing, while Franklin goes into retirement with all the laurels and they give that Fitzjames a full position and cut funding for my department.”

“Well, seems like you’ve got it all worked out,” Thomas said. “Might as well throw in the towel now and retire.”

Francis huffed.

“Do you want another beer?” Ross asked, which was a more helpful comment. Francis nodded, and Ross carefully got up from the kitchen table—they had learned long ago that the slightest knock to the table could prompt discussions about the correct placement of miniatures later—and shuffled to the fridge. Thomas, knowing that his time for subterfuge had run out, focused his attention back on Francis.

“Francis, be serious for a second. This is a great position. Maybe it’s not tenure, but it’s three years of being second-in-command for a project of _six and a half million euros per year_. If they don’t want you here after that, I say fuck them, and you’re free to move on to bigger and better things.”

Francis made a noise of acknowledgement that didn’t sound too happy. He didn’t want another university. He _liked_ it here. Ross came back with the beer, which cheered him up somewhat.

“I don’t want to go to _Erebus_ anyway,” Francis said. “I don’t like the idea of leaving Irving and Little alone.”

Thomas snorted. “That sounds like a recipe for disaster.”

Irving had a reputation among undergrads for writing terrifying emails to anyone asking for an extension on a deadline, and Francis was relatively sure that Little hadn’t slept since the second year of his PhD, which had been seven years ago now.

“Can’t leave the postdocs unsupervised,” Ross agreed. “But where were we?”

They all leaned back over the table, where Francis’s troops were now in a more precarious position than they had been fifteen minutes earlier. Francis frowned. Thomas’s face was one of pure innocence. 


	2. Chapter 2

**April 2016**

In his ten years of gainful employment at the university, Francis had never gotten to take his lunch in the separate room behind the cafeteria that was reserved for higher-level staff and the chancellor. Sitting at the table for the inaugural lunch of the Franklin cluster, he found it wasn’t quite as exciting as he’d pictured it.

There was only so much dignity to which one could impart sixties brutalist architecture, especially when paired with the fact that all of the building materials had been on the cheaper side. The wood panelling was painfully fake, and so was the dark wood table they were seated around. At least the chairs were comfortable, though the padding had worn out over the years. From the walls, past chancellors of the university—all men—stared down at them in black and white.

Francis had brought Thomas Jopson along. John and Edward had begged him to find a way to get them invited, but Francis didn’t want to attend the inaugural meeting with half his department trailing behind him like lost puppies, though having them at his side would have been a comfort.

At least he had Jopson.

James Fitzjames was in the process of relaying a story from his field research, the goal of which Francis had not yet managed to discern, most likely because his attention was split between listening to James and figuring out what precise dish the cafeteria had attempted (and failed) to replicate for lunch. Next to him, Jopson was sitting with his back so straight he might as well have been standing at attention on a military parade ground. Francis still remembered what that was like, to feel so out of place and out of one’s depth. Hell, he still felt it most days. No matter how far he advanced, the academic world had a way of reminding Francis he didn’t belong.

“So once we arrive in this tiny Dutch village and make our way to the office building we’ve rented—there was no reception, and none of us spoke Dutch—we find that the three offices we were promised are each of them only about five square metres!”

James pressed a hand to his chest in recalling the shock he must have felt. Laughter rippled around the table. _It’s just a game_ , Francis reminded himself. Sophia had said much the same to him on many occasions. _We’re all playing it. Just smile for the lunches, show up for the talks and lectures, write the reviews and praise your superiors’ work. And before you know it, you’ll be one of them._

“Now we all realise this is going to make group interviews very difficult—"

Another round of good-natured laughter. Francis knew in his heart he’d never _feel_ like one of them. People like Franklin, even James, who came out of this world and knew it so well, would always look down on someone like Francis, who had to fight for every step he climbed up the ladder.

“—until Le Vesconte had the brilliant idea to simply rent a barge for the group interviews! It’s a miracle none of the participants got seasick.”

It was theatre. Francis could never get away with something so shoddily planned. It was hard enough getting an initial budget approved, much less justifying additional expenses afterwards. And here was James, relaying the story as though it was nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

“What do you say to that, Francis?”

It was Franklin who’d addressed him with that curious look of his, chin tilted forward as though challenging him. Francis hated it. He chuckled. Nervously—he could hear it in his own voice.

“Oh, I’m afraid the… intricacies of Dr Fitzjames’s research are beyond me.”

James’s mouth twitched at that, and Francis realized he had probably come across as sarcastic rather than gracious. Even Jopson winced. Francis pulled himself out of his self-pitying thoughts with force and refocussed on the conversation at hand.

“We’re looking to publish the first papers by the end of this year.” Franklin had taken over the conversation again. After his right-hand man James had warmed them all up with his charm and entertainment, it seemed. “Dr Gore has a promising paper already in the works, or so I’ve been told. And there’s the conference, of course.”

“We’re planning it as a _Bergfest_.”

James looked right in his element—he’d dressed smartly in dark jeans and a white shirt with black buttons, the top two of which were undone. He pulled off business casual like no one else Francis had ever met, even with his hair long enough that he could have joined the group of Greens on campus and no one would have thought anything amiss. He remembered everybody’s name and current research, which had stunned Francis when James had greeted him and asked about the progress of Francis’s survey. Francis—too surprised to muster a proper answer—had mumbled something about response rates to online surveys, and then made a red-faced retreat.

“We want to showcase ongoing research, not just finished projects. An interdisciplinary cluster especially should welcome input at all stages of the research process,” James continued, waving his coffee around like it was champagne and he was at a dinner party rather than trapped in a cafeteria backroom that pretended at grandeur.

“Well said!” Franklin exclaimed.

“What’s a _Bergfest_?” Jopson whispered.

“Celebrating that you made it half of the way.” Francis attempted a quiet noise of derision while leaning over to Jopson, pretending to ask him to pass over a bottle of water. “As though getting halfway is anything to celebrate.”

Jopson concealed his smile. Francis was grateful for every opportunity he got to teach Jopson not to take the posturing of senior faculty quite so seriously. He’d be far more relaxed once he learned that.

When Francis leaned back in his seat—it creaked slightly, which worried him—he caught James’s eye across the table. James must have been staring at him. Francis couldn’t puzzle out the expression on his face—a slight frown, as though he was intently focussed on deciphering something just outside his reach.

* * *

**May 2016**

By mid-May, the cafeteria was mostly devoid of students as everyone took their lunch outside. The only people who stayed inside were those afraid of wasps, or those who had spent so much time in their offices that prolonged exposure to sunlight might prove fatal. And, of course, there were the mid-level faculty on lunch meetings.

James had picked falafel with rice and a cream sauce with a few sad herbs in it. His only consolation was that Francis’s dish—the salmon—didn’t look much more appealing. James didn’t know much about fish, but he had a feeling salmon should never be this particular shade of grey. Besides, with the temperatures this May had already reached, cafeteria seafood seemed a risky choice.

They had taken a seat by the window, with the hope of catching a little breeze from outside. None of the university buildings had air conditioning—it was considered an unnecessary expense and damaging to the climate to boot.

James had spent the first half of their meal talking about the progress of the classes he was teaching because Francis looked as uncomfortable as anyone James had ever seen. Maybe he felt bad about the way he’d behaved at their inaugural lunch. James would endeavour to show him that he was a forgiving man.

“We have a seminar in the winter that focusses on people’s meal choices in the cafeteria.” Francis’s salmon had reminded James of it. “I designed it together with Dundy—I mean Dr Le Vesconte. It was voted ‘most innovative’ last year by the green campus group.”

Francis made a noise that only the most charitable listener would interpret as encouragement to go on. Luckily, James was feeling extremely charitable—the falafel tasted better than the presentation led one to believe.

“We let the students come up with ways to motivate people to choose more climate-friendly meal options. And the students can observe the results directly. Dundy and I are working on improving the seminar design for the winter semester right now.”

There was still very little in the way of response from Francis, who sat with his back straight, focussed on cutting his salmon with the utmost precision.

James had a moment of perfect clarity, then, where he understood why John had tasked him with these meetings. It seemed information sharing with Francis was not the pleasant chat James had expected it to be. And John—who knew James enjoyed a good business lunch—had tricked James by letting him think it was to get out of the ordeal himself.

Well, James would show him. If there was one thing he was good at, it was small talk. He was the star at every conference he ever attended. What was Francis Crozier next to hungover senior faculty?

“What are you working on right now?”

People loved to talk about themselves; James knew that from experience. If he could just figure out what Francis liked to talk about, that would make things a whole lot more pleasant.

“We’re using Twitter data to see if social media activity has an influence on the voting behaviour of MPs,” Francis said, the phrase coming smoothly enough to sound rehearsed. He took another bite of his salmon and offered no further explanation.

“Ah,” James said, slowly. “That sounds interesting…?”

The prompt did not have the desired effect. Francis simply continued eating in silence, his movements precise, his gaze never leaving his plate. Even James got the message that Francis just wanted this lunch to be over, and quickly.

He turned back to his falafel, defeated. John had made his reservations about working with Francis clear, but James hadn’t wanted to believe him at first. Now, he was beginning to see why John would be disappointed to be saddled with a second who showed no interest in cross-department collaboration—the minimum requirement for a project that was supposed to be interdisciplinary. If they couldn’t work together, how could they expect the same from the researchers at the lower levels?

“Dr Crozier—" This would be his last attempt, James swore. He had directed most of his considerable charm at the man and Francis didn’t seem fazed. But James would try, one last time, in the spirit of collegiality. “I think it would be beneficial, for the sake of a pleasant work environment, if we could find a way to talk to each other.”

Francis did look at him, then, with an expression that seemed more bewildered than offended. “Nothing would make me happier. I’m not the one who wasted most of our meeting time on recounting his own achievements.”

James reeled. Was any pleasantry lost on this man?

“If that’s the case, Dr Crozier, I’ll make sure we only talk business in the future.” He sounded petty, even to his own ears, but he’d just never been rebuffed quite so forcefully.

“Good,” Francis said.

Academia was a game of pleasantries. No wonder Francis hadn’t made tenure yet.

* * *

**August 2016**

Harry Goodsir had spent most of his life since early childhood wishing he was less of an open book to people.

With six siblings, it had given him nothing but trouble, instigated by those both older and younger than him. Then, all the way through his bachelor’s degree in biology, his fellow students had always known when he was grossed out by a specimen or panicked about a deadline and hadn’t let him forget it. Now, as a junior professor, he couldn’t sit in on a department meeting without Dr MacDonald noting his every disagreement and quizzing him on it afterwards.

It was only a small mercy that the email in his inbox this morning was not from Dr MacDonald.

_Saw u leaving erebus this morning. U looked down. Everything alright?  
xxx silna_

Underneath which was printed her official university signature, which included both her PhDs. Goodsir sighed and rubbed his eyes. So it _had_ been that obvious.

_I’ll explain over lunch if you have time. I made cookies.  
HG_

He didn’t need to wait a minute for the ping of the response in his inbox.

_U can count on it._

He had met Silna in the first semester of his bachelor’s degree: Silna’s third. Back then, she’d been an anthropology student with a minor in biology, and Goodsir just a lowly biology student with an undiagnosed anxiety disorder. Silna had told him a couple of years ago that she’d approached him—Goodsir still remembered her: hair in pigtails, wearing a yellow sweater and dungarees, clutching a legal pad in front of her chest like a shield—because he’d looked like the student most likely to take detailed notes. He had, of course, happily shared them with her, and he still cherished the notebooks in which they’d traded their conversations before he’d learnt sign language. That made Silna one of his oldest friends, not counting his siblings.

Silna made a beeline for the oatmeal cookies when she swirled into his office at ten past one, wearing a floral pattern skirt with a jean vest. She took the subway from _Terror_ , which meant she was chronically late around lunchtime when traffic peaked. She stuffed the whole thing into her mouth at once, then signed a greeting.

Harry beamed at her.

They traded stories over lunch, interrupted by the need to use cutlery every once in a while. One of Silna’s students on his practical year had gotten sick with a tropical disease, and Silna was stuck fighting with the head of the department about whether or not he’d get to go home early and still receive full credit.

“He’s frightened,” Silna signed. “It’s not easy, being sick so far away from home.” Then she turned her dark eyes to Harry and his perpetual frown. “So what’s got you worked up today?”

“Something similar,” he signed and sighed. “You know David Young?” He spelled out the name. “We had a meeting yesterday. He’s going to leave us by the end of the semester.”

Silna frowned. “I’m sorry.” She put her hand on his arm briefly. “What happened?”

He made a helpless gesture. “I shouldn’t say.”

Instead of signing a response, Silna mimed locking her mouth and throwing away the key, then winked.

Harry had to laugh. “No, really, it’s confidential. But I’m afraid…” He linked his hands together before he could say something he’d regret. MacDonald told him he was too forward for the department, certainly too forward for Professor Stanley, who was representing them on the cluster committee and who had let Goodsir know on multiple occasions that he did not think his attitude was helpful for the project.

“What?” Silna gave him a gentle shove.

Harry buried his face in his hands. Unfortunately, he had to re-emerge to sign his answer.

“He looked dreadful, Silna! He was so afraid that I’d be disappointed in him, that Professor Franklin would be disappointed. I told him that his health should be his absolute priority. But I can’t stop thinking—how many more out there feel just as overwhelmed, but they’re not coming forward, because of shame or because of the pressure to do well…”

Silna’s thumb rubbed a comforting circle on his forearm. “Have you spoken to Dr MacDonald?”

He nodded. Silna squeezed his arm firmly. “Then leave it to the higher-ups. It’s out of your hands now.”

He made an exasperated noise, ready to protest, and Silna shook her head vigorously. “No more worrying. I’m going to tell you about my student who applied for a visa to Austria instead of Australia now.”

* * *

The semester had finished up in mid-July, and Francis’s students were all proceeding well with their term papers. Jopson was working to ready the first part of his thesis for publication, and Irving was preparing to head to a conference in Montreal at the end of the month. With most of the students gone, they had _Terror_ almost to themselves. It did not improve productivity, but it did greatly improve the coffee breaks and hallway conversations, and it had put Francis in a relatively good mood for most of the month. Not even the prospect of the monthly cluster evaluation meeting could dampen his spirits.

On Wednesday, Francis took his bicycle up to the main library to pick up a book on multilevel regression. He would have sent Edward to do it, except Edward was having a minor coding crisis and the day was pleasant so Francis didn’t mind the trip. He saw some of his students at the tables and greeted them. Some greeted him back; others looked at him with a face that betrayed they’d just remembered the upcoming deadline. Francis left them with that thought, and even made some small talk with the librarian as he checked out the book.

On his way out, he ran into Dr Goodsir.

“Professor Crozier!”

Francis knew Goodsir from the natural sciences Christmas parties—Thomas always made sure Francis got an invite. Goodsir was a man who endeavoured to melt into the background of whatever scene he found himself in, save for the classroom or his lab.

“Dr Goodsir! How are you? I hope the research is going well.”

They made their way out of the library foyer. Later, Francis would think it was his good mood that had ruined it all—things went wrong when he let his guard down for even five minutes.

“My research? Oh, it’s fine.” Goodsir shook his head. Francis, adept at interpreting conflicting signals, inclined his head. “What’s wrong?”

Goodsir sighed.

“David Young just dropped out.”

“Young?”

“One of my PhD students.”

That explained some of his frazzled composure. Francis slowed down their pace and made sure that no students on their lunch break were in earshot.

“Is everything alright?”

Goodsir sighed again. “Have you spoken to Professor Franklin?”

“I haven’t,” Francis said. “Not since the last meeting.”

And James hadn’t mentioned anything out of the ordinary. Francis was beginning to feel very strange indeed. Goodsir was distressed, and he obviously thought there was information Francis should have. That Francis didn’t have it wasn’t a good look for the cluster. He made a mental note to write James an email about it.

Goodsir grimaced. It looked like a reassuring smile that had gone wrong somewhere along the way. “I’m sure all the necessary steps are being taken.” He adjusted the strap of his over-shoulder bag. “Well, I should be off.”

Francis caught his arm. Goodsir now looked visibly uncomfortable.

“You can always talk to me if there’s something on your mind, Dr Goodsir.”

Goodsir didn’t look like he was likely to take Francis up on the offer.

* * *

“Alright, any more questions?”

Francis had been trying for the last thirty minutes to tell himself it was none of his business how Franklin allocated administrative work in the project. That was firmly Franklin’s job. Franklin received the reviews and saw the hours people put in, and if he decided that was fine, then Francis should close his eyes and think of the professorial selection committee. But by God was it hard when Franklin monologued for most of the meeting, using time that could be spent solving actual issues to praise his and his department’s work.

Francis tried to catch James’s eye. There had been no response to his email, but Francis found it hard to believe that James and Franklin hadn’t had the chance to discuss the issue. Their offices were adjacent, and it wasn’t like Franklin had any real teaching responsibilities—he passed that off to his postdocs. And James wouldn’t let such an important issue lie.

Goodsir hadn’t taken Francis up on his offer to talk, but Francis knew Professor MacDonald, who had been Goodsir’s thesis advisor. Francis hated going behind people’s backs, but it was the only thing that had ever gotten him anywhere in academia, with the administration so uncooperative towards him. What MacDonald had told Francis had shocked him, and now he desperately needed to find a way to gauge if he was overreacting.

“I do,” Francis said, and hated the way it drew all eyes at the table on him. Franklin looked a little surprised, as though he’d quite forgotten that Francis was there.

“Yes, Francis?”

“I wonder if we could rethink the allocation of administrative tasks for the coming semester.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw James make an aborted gesture, like he’d just jerked awake from an ill-timed nap. But if James had wanted him to keep this to himself, he should have answered Francis’s email. Francis also didn’t miss Professor Stanley’s reaction—he carefully set down his pen and rested his chin on his steepled hands. He must have heard the news from Goodsir.

“Is something the matter with the current workload?” Franklin asked. The way he said it—all innocence—infuriated Francis.

“David Young decided to drop out of the programme this week after an appointment with the university psychologist.” Francis made sure to keep his eyes fixed on Franklin. “He told Dr Goodsir that he had been feeling tired for months, that he’d had depressive episodes, and that ultimately the workload expected of him to fulfil his administrative requirements left him no time for his research.”

Francis tried very hard to keep his breathing steady, but he could feel the spots of colour on his cheek. He’d never been very good at keeping his emotions in check, but hearing about Young had rattled him on a personal level.

“Yes, I’ve heard about Young.”

Franklin was the very picture of calm.

“You don’t think the way we allocated most of the administrative tasks to the junior faculty might have anything to do with his breakdown?” Francis pressed, fighting to keep his voice in check.

James leaned forward in his seat. “Francis…”

“It’s very unfortunate, but one student who is a little overwhelmed with the requirements surely doesn’t mean we need to change our entire approach,” Franklin said.

Francis balled his hands into fists under the table. “Billy Orren was involved in a car accident yesterday.”

Silence at the table. Stanley picked up his pen again, marked down a note in his agenda. So they hadn’t heard about that yet.

“He came back late from the lab, and the police think he fell asleep on his bicycle.”

James pressed a hand over his mouth. The self-assuredness in Franklin’s face dropped somewhat; Francis could see it in the twitch of his mouth. For a moment, the table hung in the balance of unexpected bad news.

Then John Franklin gathered his composure. “I stand by what I said. We can hardly be blamed for a lack of time management skills in our PhD students. They knew what they were taking on.”

Francis wanted to slam his fist on the table. He wanted to scream at Franklin, to scream at James. They had been in that very same place as David Young once: young, desperate to impress, eager to work, and eager to overwork themselves. Francis could still remember what that felt like, so why couldn’t they? Yet he did none of these things. It wouldn’t help; he already knew that. It would simply get him dismissed and written off as unpredictable. Instead, he thought of the professorial selection committee and forced a smile to his lips.

“Of course.”

Franklin clapped his hands together. “Alright, then. We’ll reconvene next month.”

James rose in his chair, eyes on Francis, but Francis was quicker. Before James could catch his arm, Francis was out the door.

* * *

James held the receiver of the phone pressed between his ear and his shoulder, making an affirmative noise ever so often, while he scrolled through his inbox. The interview was being recorded, and he’d transcribe it later, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the email. It had to be somewhere.

He changed windows when his interview partner fell silent, pulling up his questionnaire again, and marking the next prompt in the script. “Would you say you have changed your behaviour after reading our informational pamphlet?”

The interviewee took up the prompt, and James resumed scrolling.

There it was. Sent by Prof. Dr. F. R. M. Crozier on August 17th, 2016, at 8.43am. Subject line ‘David Young’. He opened it and scanned the text again.

The man on the other end of the line cleared his throat, and James realised he’d fallen silent again. Quickly he pulled the script back up.

“Have you made any other changes to your daily commute?”

It was bad practise. He should be focussed on the interview, but the exchange during the meeting earlier had left him shaken. He hadn’t realised the urgency when he’d first read Francis’s message, and it hit him all the harder now. Since this was his third interview of the week, he felt like he could afford to give it only seventy percent.

Unlike Francis, James had seen David Young’s case as isolated, much like John. It was only now—and with the additional information about Orren floating around his head—that James began to see what Francis meant. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it.

He finished up the interview, even though his heart wasn’t in it. He felt bad for Young, and for Orren, but didn’t know either of them personally. Any letter would have to come from John’s office or not at all, and James could already guess by John’s reaction in the meeting he wouldn’t like the culpability implied in a letter. So James did the next best thing he could—he went out for a smoke.

* * *

He didn’t often smoke on campus. If he did, he probably would have picked a different spot, one that didn’t offer itself quite so obviously to a surreptitious cigarette break and was therefore easily sussed out by nosy postdocs.

“Dr Fitzjames.”

James flinched, then told himself off for feeling guilty. That didn’t excuse the shit-eating grin on Dundy’s face when he sauntered up to James.

“How are you doing?” James asked, which was stupid because he’d seen Dundy in the tea kitchen this morning and asked him the exact same question already.

Dundy shrugged. “Seven years, and yet I didn’t know you smoked.”

James took another drag of his cigarette. “I don’t.”

He didn’t smoke, in fact. He’d only ever smoked one or two cigarettes from every pack of smokes he bought before remembering it was a bad habit. Over the years, it had become his way of gauging just how badly a situation affected him.

“I see.” Dundy nodded solemnly. “Is this about the interviews?”

James only had to go and talk to Francis. It should be easy, he reasoned. Or it would be, if the man didn’t make him so damned nervous. His insistence on professionalism aside, he seemed perpetually on the verge of an outburst of temper, and James couldn’t help but take it personally. Francis had that look about him—his pale eyes were made for cutting to the very core of things, and that didn’t leave anything about James whole when Francis turned those eyes on him. “No, the interviews are going well.”

Dundy was helping James with the transcribing and coding of the interviews, which James appreciated because he didn’t have the money to hire a student assistant, and John was hogging all the PhD students for his own research. James kept promising himself he’d find a research angle for Dundy in all of this so that Dundy would at least get a paper out of it all, but with the cluster and his classes, James hadn’t found the time.

Dundy dug around his pockets for his own cigarettes, which was something, at least. It meant that he hadn’t come here looking for James with some kind of sixth sense for when James was making bad decisions. “Do you have a light?”

James fished his cheap supermarket-brand lighter he’d bought with the cigarettes earlier out of his pocket and offered it to Dundy.

“Thanks.” Dundy took a drag of his cigarette and exhaled with a deep sigh. The smoke hung around them in the heavy August air. “Look, if it’s private, I don’t have to pry.”

James shook his head. “It’s nothing like that, either. I misplaced an email.”

Dundy raised an eyebrow. “Not quite the earth-shattering event I pictured.”

James rolled his eyes. “You have no idea.”

Dundy had defended his PhD thesis about a year after James and started working in their department not long after that. They had been friends before they became co-workers, which meant that James trusted Dundy to keep what he told him between the two of them. He stepped in closer, after looking around to make sure no one was nearby to overhear.

“It’s about the cluster.” His cigarette was almost gone, but he took another hopeful drag. “One PhD student dropped out because of health issues; another one was in an accident because he fell asleep on his bicycle. Francis thinks it’s a systemic issue, that we’re overworking the PhDs; John thinks it’s nothing.”

“And you’re caught in the crossfire,” Dundy observed.

James shrugged. “Francis was all up in arms about it at the meeting. You should have seen him; he looked like he wanted to strangle John. And I get it—we know that the PhDs always get the short end of the stick when it comes to extra work, both for teaching and admin stuff.”

“But…?” Dundy prompted.

“I can’t tell John that, can I?” James asked.

Dundy grimaced. “Ouch. Guess that’s a reason for a cigarette.”

John had supervised both their theses. They had survived their four years. That wasn’t to say that everybody could, or that it had been easy.

James looked at the stub in his hand with a wistful expression. He wouldn’t stoop so low as to smoke another, but by God did he want to. Instead, he went to carefully deposit it in the nearby trash bin.

“Is there another solution, one that wouldn’t involve picking sides in your department version of Romeo and Juliet?” Dundy asked when James returned.

James shot him a glare. “Please.”

“Well, it’s obvious that Francis wants you and himself and John to do all the work. John wants to do none of the work. So why not find someone else who can do the work that no one wants to do?”

“Are you volunteering?” James asked sarcastically. Dundy grinned.

“For six and a half million, you can hire a lot of student assistants.”


	3. Chapter 3

**August 2016**

“Edward!”

It was Friday afternoon—half past three, to be precise—and their tea kitchen had been out of coffee since ten-thirty am, when Hodgson had swung by and made one last cup of coffee before disappearing off to wherever he did his work. In Francis’s book, that was a good enough reason to be in a bad mood this late into the afternoon, and this close to the weekend, and yell at his postdocs.

A stack of applications—accompanied by a politely worded but stern note in Professor Franklin’s own handwriting—had landed on Francis’s desk shortly after lunch. The note had asked Francis to go through the applications _personally_ as soon as possible. Out of spite, and because they were out of coffee when it had been Edward’s turn to buy beans, Francis intended to make Edward do it instead.

He pushed his chair back from his desk so as to better yell out into the hallway. “ _Edward!_ ”

Instead of Edward, his bellowing voice brought Dr John Irving to his door. “He went to get coffee with Thomas.”

Francis closed his eyes and prayed for patience. Edward hadn’t even had the decency to ask if Francis wanted a coffee. Neither had Jopson, the traitor.

“Something I can help you with?” Irving asked.

Francis tapped the stack of applications. “I need these looked at. Franklin decided we’re hiring student assistants for some of the administrative work. Could you make a pre-selection?”

Irving looked about as happy as Francis would have in his position fifteen years ago. Still, he _had_ asked. “When do you need them?”

“Wednesday should be fine.”

Irving grabbed the papers.

Before he left, Francis remembered to say, “If you see Edward, tell him to bring coffee beans on Monday, or I will find some other terrible task for him that he’ll enjoy even less.”

* * *

**September 2016**

“How are the interviews going?” James asked when they had seated themselves at their table—and it had become their table, hadn’t it; they both enjoyed the privacy offered by the two large palm-like trees that the cafeteria used as room dividers. James sounded a tad uneasy, even though he was trying his best to seem genial. Francis knew he only had himself to blame for that.

“I think Irving will murder the next candidate with a _Canva_ template CV, but other than that, it’s going great.”

James snorted. When he leaned back in his seat, he looked a little more relaxed. “How are things on your end?”

Francis had been trying hard to be a more pleasant version of himself, not least of all because Thomas had had some choice words for what he called ‘Francis’s insistence on self-sabotage’. Francis had had some choice words for the liberties Thomas was taking, and they’d both sulked for the duration of one miserable seminar slot until Francis had apologised and Thomas had elbowed him in the side affectionately. After that, Francis had taken his friend’s advice to heart.

James rolled his eyes, always walking the line of the dramatic. Over the course of the summer, Francis had watched him go through an impressive collection of patterned button-down shirts, all just shy of too garish for university. Today, he was wearing a light pink linen shirt that was positively tame in comparison, the short sleeves showing off his tanned arms. Francis drew his gaze away when he found himself staring.

“I wish I had someone like Irving,” James sighed. “But the only postdoc we can spare is Dundy, and we can’t actually spare him. I have a backlog of interviews to transcribe for my research, and another interview next week that I have to prepare.” He stuffed a forkful of peas into his mouth. “You wouldn’t consider lending out Irving, by any chance? I’m only half joking.”

Two months ago, Francis would have balked at that. But since he was endeavouring to be more charitable, he suppressed his instinct to grumble about how he shouldn’t have to make up for another department’s shortcomings. What did Sophia always say? It was all politics. “If you’ll pay half his hours for September, I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”

James tapped his fork against his plate, considering. “Alright,” he said, “I’ll clear it with John later, but I’m sure he’ll be receptive to the argument that Irving’s already familiar with the subject matter and the hiring process.”

Irving would hate Francis for this. Francis would make it up to him with some time on the supercomputer in October. Irving was easily bribed with more research opportunities, and more excuses to close his office door and yell at anyone interrupting him, especially the bachelor students. Francis could probably also find some bachelor students for him to yell at; those would be plenty in supply in a couple of weeks. The more impressionable, the better.

“Why are you smiling?” James asked.

“Thinking about how much Irving will hate this,” Francis answered.

“There is a simple joy in passing on tasks to one’s underlings,” James agreed with a grin. Sometimes Francis forgot that despite his age, James was an accomplished researcher who shouldered a lot of responsibility in a comparatively junior position. He probably understood Francis better than Francis gave him credit for.

“I have to say, I’m glad John was receptive to the idea,” James said. “Otherwise, I don’t know how we would have managed, especially with the conference preparations starting next year.”

“It wasn’t his idea?” That was news to Francis.

James’s eyes widened a fraction, as though something had suddenly become clear to him that wasn’t clear before. He had a very expressive face—not that Francis spent a lot of time looking at it. “It was my idea. Well, Dundy’s idea, but I proposed it, because Dundy isn’t in a position to propose anything.”

Francis’s stomach did an odd flip—guilt, respect, or both jumbled up together. James _had_ listened, and he’d recognised the seriousness of the situation. Francis wouldn’t have thought it possible. It was the realisation that at least part of his anger had been misdirected at James. “I didn’t know that,” he said.

James paused, his gaze stuck on Francis as though something he saw was giving him pause. Francis felt his face grow warm and turned his eyes away towards his plate. His fried rice looked sadder than usual, even by the standards of the cafeteria.

It was just… discovering an unexpected side of James. Nothing to see here.

Mercifully, James turned back towards his own plate. Unfortunately, Francis looked up early enough to see a small smile on James’s face, one that wasn’t gloating or showy or meant to be seen—it was the smile of a man who was simply pleased to have done something right.

Francis cleared his throat. James went back to eating his peas.

* * *

**November 2016**

Because the university never passed up a good opportunity to shoehorn multiple purposes into buildings that should be single-purpose, _Erebus_ had been designed with two classrooms, one on the first and one on the second floor, that each could seat about forty people. James had seized the one on the second floor—the first floor still being under construction—for what they now called the student assistant pen: four desks spaced out across the room, a printer, and a sad plant. The chalkboard at the far side of the room had been removed in favour of a pin-board which now displayed due tasks in order of urgency. Someone had found some red string and connected seemingly unrelated tasks, but James was not going to call out the student assistants for having some fun.

Two of their assistants—an MA student named Solomon Tozer, and a BA student in his last semester named Cornelius Hickey—were currently at their desks, typing away at something. Between them stood an empty box of donuts. A few grease stains and sugar sprinkles on the bottom were all that was left of their meal. James thought he should probably bring them some fruit so they wouldn’t die of malnutrition.

“How are things going?”

“Dr Fitzjames!” Tozer jumped up from behind his laptop. “We didn’t see you there.”

James waved it off. “I just came by for the interview transcripts.”

Tozer and Hickey exchanged a glance. “Yes,” Hickey said slowly.

“The interview transcripts,” Tozer said.

“Gibson said they were ready,” James prompted. He was grateful for Irving’s help in the selection process, but he did wonder what the rest of the applicants had looked like if this chaotic troupe represented the best of them. At least their hearts seemed to be in the right place.

“Oh, Billy!” Hickey jumped up from his chair. From the desk that was presumably Billy’s, he produced a stack of papers. “Fresh off the printing press, Professor.”

James didn’t correct him. “Thank you.”

“There you are!”

At the sound of John’s voice, the three of them turned around. John Franklin stood in the doorway, surveying the scene with the critical eye of someone who hadn’t had to work in an open-plan office since the seventies. “How are things going?”

It occurred to James that there were only so many things that anyone above PhD-level could say to the student assistants. It was as though they’d all collectively forgotten what it was like to be young. James hoped he didn’t look quite as out of place as John, who was wearing a suit that had last fit him properly fifteen years ago.

“James, can I speak with you for a second?”

They stepped out into the hallway. James closed the office door behind them, half-expecting that John wouldn’t take this to his office. He was right.

“We need a publication, James.”

The passage of time was not lost on James, who had not forgotten John’s promise that they’d publish their first article before the end of the year. Apparently, the urgency had caught up with John now.

“Yes, I suppose we do.”

In anticipation of this conversation, James had begun making inquiries with the different departments about their progress. Most was still far from publication-ready, as was to be expected after a mere seven months, most of which had been occupied with classes.

“I talked to Dr Gore last week,” James said, careful to keep his voice neutral, “Their article is mostly publication-ready, but they need someone who is good at data visualisation. Apparently, the student who was going to do that for them took a job at another university.”

“But that’s _good news_ , James!” John’s face lit up in precisely the way James had wanted to avoid. It wasn’t a good idea to get expectations up now. Even if they did get someone to visualise the data, the paper would still have to pass peer review. “That’s what we hired these young men for, isn’t it?”

He wasn’t wrong. James made a noncommittal noise, which John decided to take as enthusiastic agreement. He brushed past James back into the office.

“Which one of you bright young men would like to help us with some data visualisation?”

James came in after him in the hopes of keeping task-allocation at least semi-regular. When he’d worked as a student assistant, he’d hated the random tasks sprung on him by the department chair. Most of them had led nowhere.

“I’ll do it, Professor!”

James turned his surprised gaze on Cornelius Hickey, who had sprung up from his desk with a broad grin.

“Great!” John called. “James, will you let Dr Gore know he can send his data over to Mr… He can send his data over to us?”

“I’ll let Dr Gore know Mr Hickey will assist him with the data visualisation,” James said smoothly. He didn’t mention the peer review process, or the number of weeks left till the end of the year again. It would go right over John’s head, anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

**January 2017**

Around eleven-thirty am, Francis abandoned any pretence of still getting his algorithm to work and instead went to see Jopson about lunch.

It had snowed briefly during the Christmas break, though not on Christmas itself. Now that staff and students had reconvened for the rest of the winter term, January was determined to show itself from its greyest, wettest side. _Terror’s_ face was a shade darker than usual, the concrete wet from the near constant rain, and Francis—much to his dismay—had discovered that his good shoes were wearing out when he’d stepped into a puddle and found water seeping into his shoes. The hallways of _Terror_ were dark even during the daytime, and conversation in the hallways muted.

Jopson’s office was empty.

“Has anyone seen Thomas?” he called out into the hallway, more out of annoyance that his plans had been foiled than any real hope someone was going to answer.

“He and Edward went for lunch ten minutes ago,” Irving responded from his office, the door of which was miraculously open for once. Francis peered in through the door and was surprised to find it relatively orderly.

“Are you going to eat in the cafeteria?”

Irving straightened his back. “I was going to… I would rather…”

“Alright, alright.” Francis waved him off. “I get it. No one wants to have lunch with the old man.”

“No, Professor, that’s not what I—”

“Relax, John.” Francis chuckled. “You keep working. I can have lunch alone.”

He went back to his office. He kept the light on most of the day now, to ward off some of the seasonal depression, but it tricked his brain into thinking that it was already much later. Despite what he said, he didn’t want to have lunch alone, not least of all because his students were in the cafeteria and nothing looked more pitiable than a professor eating alone.

He fished his phone out of his pocket.

**_You_ ** _  
Do you want to get lunch? I was abandoned by my underlings.  
11.42_

Oh, but this was stupid. He and James had lunch once a week because it was mandated, not because they were friends. That they got along better didn’t mean that James wanted to spend _more_ time with Francis Crozier, resident miserable non-tenured professor. He probably had a whole range of friends in his department who went to lunch with him on a regular basis.

His phone buzzed.

**_PD Dr James Fitzjames_ ** _  
Ten minutes at the veggie cafeteria? Got one more office hour appt.  
11.44_

Francis stared at the screen of his phone until it went dark. Then he grabbed his coat and an umbrella.

* * *

They were serving veggie burgers at the cafeteria, and the queue was long enough to almost make Francis turn around. Then he spotted James, already in line, at the same time James spotted him. He still had his peacoat on but was holding his gloves in one hand and looked fashionably flustered like he’d rushed to get here, his hair curling in the damp air. He gave Francis a cheerful wave, and Francis waved back, although it made him feel a little stupid. When he stepped in line next to James, the student behind them gave him a dark look.

“Your message was a godsend,” James announced, and Francis found he wasn’t even bothered by the hyperbolics anymore. “Dundy had just abandoned me to a lonely lunch because apparently he needs to ‘teach class’. How dare he.”

Francis snorted. “Because you never teach class.”

He’d learnt a number of things about James in the last months, and one of them was that James regularly signed up to teach at least one more class than was advisable, considering his schedule. He thrived in front of a classroom, and his students adored him for it. Francis, to whom teaching didn’t come easy, envied him for it.

“Oh, shut it.”

James elbowed him in the side, Francis being too slow to dodge it. It occurred to Francis that to the rest of the lunch queue, they probably looked like old friends—James had been far more relaxed around Francis the last couple of months.

This was bad news for Francis, who in his life had never been anything but awkwardly professional around people, even when he found he would very much like to pursue a friendship. The last friend he’d made was Ross, and he’d been considerably younger back then and had still had a couple of interesting hobbies. Now, he was just a middle-aged man with two and a half friends who played Warhammer every other week, none of which sounded like great conversation topics.

Luckily, James carried most of their conversations. He had a gift for finding the comedic in the daily drudge of academia that Francis actually found charming. If Thomas found out, he’d never let Francis hear the end of it.

They settled down with their burgers at their regular table. Francis eyed the beetroot patty with suspicion, but James seemed to enjoy it. Francis nibbled at a fry experimentally.

“Truth be told, I’m glad to be out of _Erebus_ for now. It sounds like there’s a storm brewing that I don’t want to witness.”

Francis made an inquisitive noise through his burger.

“Do you remember Gore’s paper? The one that came out just before Christmas?”

James had seemed all cheer to Francis earlier, but now that they were sitting Francis noticed a little bit of weariness around the eyes and the set of James’s mouth.

“I do,” Francis confirmed. He hadn’t read it—had no interest, not after Franklin praised it to the heavens. To Francis, it had clearly been a publicity stunt. Nothing could have come out of the cluster in that time; it had been plain to everyone that Gore had been working on the paper for a while. Not to mention the suspicious speed with which the paper had passed peer review.

“John received an email from the journal this morning.” James dropped his voice lower and leaned over the table. Francis leaned in to meet him and noted a whiff of aftershave that distracted him for a moment. He blinked.

“Apparently there are some things wrong in the analysis. I didn’t quite understand what it was all about—the visualisation, but also the underlying models are wrong somehow?”

“Did you never take a statistics class?” Francis asked, a little offended.

“That was a while ago,” James muttered, “and it’s _not_ the point of what I’m trying to tell you.”

Francis waved it off. “What is the point, then?”

“The paper has to be retracted, or so it seems.” James’s mouth curled unhappily. He looked more pained than disappointed, Francis thought, and again remembered Franklin’s exuberance at the publication. A rushed publication with shoddy statistics work was a bad look, and James knew it.

“I can have a look at it,” Francis offered.

James perked up. It was noticeable, because he was so tall that when he straightened out his slouch, it made a couple of inches difference. “You would?”

Francis shrugged, uncomfortable to suddenly be the centre of so much delighted attention. He felt his cheeks grow warm. “It’s no big deal,” he said, but the hand James placed on his arm made him think it might be.

* * *

James walked through _Terror’s_ hallways like he was a child in a museum—the cool kind, with dinosaurs. “You know, I’ve never been here before!”

“Not even for classes?” Francis couldn’t believe that.

James shook his head. “I read all about the building in the university brochure, of course. I don’t think any other building has such an adventurous history.”

Francis gave a noncommittal shrug. The building’s history—the architecture, its function as the centre of student protests in the 60s and then again in the early 80s—had all been before Francis’s time. He hadn’t thought about it much, but James looked at the linoleum-covered hallway floors, outdated event flyers, and protest posters by the student self-government like they were all living history.

They made their way up to Francis’s office, where James spent five minutes staring at Francis’s bookshelf, two minutes commenting on the placement of his potted plants—apparently the ones he kept closest to the window preferred less sunlight—and then complimenting Francis’s minimalist aesthetic in such a genuine tone that Francis was inclined to believe he meant it. Not that Francis had _chosen_ a minimalist aesthetic. It was just the way he liked his office: clean, orderly.

He pointed James to one of the computers and let him log into his email account. James pulled up the paper, then relinquished the seat to Francis. When Francis was seated, James perched on the armrest of the chair—a delicate balancing act. Francis could smell aftershave again.

He banished the thoughts of James’s aftershave and why it bothered him so from his mind as he pulled up the paper. He skipped the introduction and theory section, mostly because he wasn’t likely to understand any of it, but stopped at the graphs and leaned back in the seat, fingers steepled. From the corner of his eye, he could see James watching him intently.

At first glance, it wasn’t too bad. The graphs were all referenced in the text, the axes labelled, the tables present. It was only when Francis took a second, deeper look that he began to see the little inconsistencies—numbers that didn’t match up that should have matched, effects that were not significant by any measure still marked as such. Francis frowned.

“Those are beginner’s mistakes,” he said.

James put a hand on his shoulder, bracing himself to lean in. “How bad is it?”

Francis turned to give him a wry grin. “I’m inclined to agree with the editors on this one.”

James nodded. He didn’t remove his hand from Francis’s shoulder. Francis was afraid to move for fear of drawing attention to it.

“John is not going to like this,” James said. He squeezed Francis’s shoulder, and Francis felt his heart tighten in strange sympathy. He cleared his throat.

“I expect he won’t.”

“Would you—" Now James got up from his precarious seat and took his bothersome hand and the smell of his aftershave with him. “Would you write up a list? Of what you think the gravest problems with the paper are?”

Francis’s mood soured at the prospect. Franklin was going to murder him in the main library courtyard. Franklin was going to put his head on a spike and present it to the professorial selection committee, and they would cheer. While Francis was still contemplating his very short and very dark future, James came back to him.

“You’d be saving my ass, Francis. You don’t know how much it means to me that you—"

James stilled. His sentence tapered out into something mumbled, and he turned his eyes away from Francis. The lines of his face deepened.

“I would appreciate it very much, Professor Crozier.”

Francis looked at James, and the dark circles under his eyes. He looked like a man torn, and for the first time Francis thought he understood the position James found himself in—caught between the demands of his department and the responsibility of the cluster, and finding that the two of them might prove impossible to unify. Francis had been in that position before. But when he’d been there, nobody had been at his side to help him.

Francis had a chance to change that for James.

* * *

In April it would be a year since James moved his office from the cramped fifth floor of the Ross building to _Erebus_ , and yet somehow, he still hadn’t managed to make it feel like _his_ space. It was all too shiny, like an exhibit, not meant for touching. Had someone told James a year ago that he’d miss the shoddy paint job of his old office, he’d have laughed at them. But in _Erebus_ , he felt constantly on display, like the very architecture of the place was asking him to live up to some nebulously defined standard.

Or perhaps he was just in a bad mood because of the cluster meeting.

John had definitely been in a bad mood for the last week, ever since James had brought him the list Francis had so carefully put together. James had done his best to emphasise that this wasn’t a criticism, merely a briefing, and that he’d asked Francis to compile it. John had nodded and assured James that he understood, and yet James left with the feeling he was still blaming Francis. As if it was Francis’s fault that the journal had discovered the faulty analysis. As if it was the journal’s fault the analysis had been faulty in the first place.

James kept going over it in his mind. His thoughts landed back on that afternoon in late November and the eager face of erstwhile BA student Cornelius Hickey. They would have to talk to him.

But the fault could certainly not fall on the shoulders of one student assistant. No, a fuck-up of this scale took failures at every juncture—not least of all Gore, who should have checked the analysis more carefully, and John, who should have done the same.

And James, who should have protested more at rushing a publication and handing critical work off to a _bachelor student_.

James was saved from his increasingly miserable thoughts by Dundy, who stuck his head into James’s office with unabashed curiosity.

“I’m really offended that you never invite me over. My office in _Ross_ has nothing on this.”

He wandered into the office and took the chair James kept for his office hours. It was a moderately comfortable chair, because John had once told him it was a mistake to make the students too comfortable. _They’ll only stay longer, and you’ll miss your lunch break!_ Like most things John had told him, James had not questioned it overmuch.

“You’re having the meeting later, right?”

Dundy knew, even though the retraction was technically not common knowledge yet. It would soon be, though, and then James would spend a significant number of lunch breaks holed up in his office to avoid his colleagues.

“Yeah,” he said, his face sour.

“I’ll buy you coffee afterwards,” Dundy offered, “before I catch you smoking outside again.”

“That was one time,” James protested.

“Something tells me it wasn’t.” Dundy grinned, but there was a note of seriousness underneath. A hint of concern. “Are you going to be alright, James?”

James took a deep breath, then let it out in an even deeper sigh and fell back in his chair. At least he didn’t have to pretend around Dundy.

“I’ll be fine. It’s Francis I’m worried about.”

Dundy gave him a curious look. “I thought you didn’t like him.”

James could see where Dundy would have gotten that impression. He wasn’t even really sure himself when the frustration he’d felt at Francis’s obstinance had moved into respect and, yes, companionship. That Francis had done as James had asked, even when he’d had no reason to, even when it would only further ruin his standing with John, had elevated him in James’s opinion. Here was a man who cared little for the politics of academia, but who seemed genuine about the pursuit of knowledge.

“I don’t think he has a single instinct turned to academic survival,” James said, “and that doesn’t mix well with John.”

“No, it wouldn’t, I suppose.”

It all fell woefully short of the things James was actually worried about—that he’d once more fall into the impossible position of moderating between Francis and John, that it would destroy the delicate rapport he’d built with Francis. James had no illusions about where his loyalties would end up, only because he wasn’t practised at saying no to John. But it would pain him.

“Alright, coffee later,” James said, and got up. It wouldn’t do to keep circling the problem in his head. The meeting was starting soon.

“Take care of yourself, James,” Dundy said gently.

* * *

Graham looked pale, like he hadn’t slept much. James wasn’t surprised.

Both John and Graham had already been in the conference room when James showed up, engaged in quiet conversation. In stark contrast to Graham, John looked calm, and so unlike the last time James had seen him, when he’d been sure John was about to march over to _Terror_ and murder Francis.

James took a seat. They didn’t have to wait long for the rest to file in. Everybody took care not to make too much eye contact, except for Francis, who came in, said his greeting and stared each of them down almost defiantly. That did not bode well.

James tried to think of some way to reassure Francis, to let him know—he didn’t know what he wanted to let Francis know. That James was in his corner, even if he couldn’t say it? He gave up.

John’s meeting agenda was as sparse as ever. James pulled it up on his iPad nevertheless—it would give him something to stare at while things went horribly wrong around him. It also confirmed his suspicion that John had saved the unpleasantness for last, so James was fated to sit through Dr Stanley’s report, John’s own report, and the report John made Francis give before they could move on to the real issue.

Watching Francis pulling himself together to report on the progress of their data mining and visualisation that was going to be their first contribution to the cluster, James was struck by a realisation: He desperately wanted Francis to like him. The man was so utterly unimpressed by everything around him, but when he spoke of the interactive graphs Edward Little had produced on the city’s carbon footprint, real pride shone through in his voice. He loved his students and the people that worked for him. James could only imagine what it would feel like to be at the centre of that attention.

“I had another idea for a project that might be of interest to the cluster,” Francis said after his report, “if you’ll give me another minute.”

John extended his hand graciously. “Go ahead.”

Francis looked down at his notepad, which was blank from what James could see.

“Dr Fairholme is looking for money to do field research in Lapland. He has a team put together, and a grant is already lined up. All he needs is some additional funding. I’ve seen his proposal, and it’s sound from what I can tell. It seems like the kind of research we should support.”

He let out a little breath at the end of his speech. James marvelled at how someone could be so uncomfortable commanding attention when it came so naturally to James.

“Field research?” John seemed less preoccupied with the intricacies of Francis’s personality, and more with the content of his proposal. “Absolutely not. We don’t have the money for it.”

“If we cut the budget for the student assistants—"

John cut Francis off before he could finish the thought. “That’s out of the question.”

“But—"

“Thank you for bringing it to my attention. You can send me the proposal, but I just don’t think it fits our profile.” John gave Francis a meaningful glare, one that attempted to be both good-natured and chastising, and failed at both. “Now, to our last point on the agenda.” John was gritting his teeth; James could tell from the tone of his voice. “Graham, if you would.”

James tried again to catch Francis’s eye, but to no avail—Francis’s gaze was fixed on some point just above John’s head, his expression so carefully blank that it bordered on offensive.

“We’ve reviewed the analysis and it does, indeed, appear as though some mistakes were made during the finalisation stage.”

Whatever else would be said about Graham in the coming weeks, he bore the whole ordeal with dignity. “We can’t say for sure where the mistake was first introduced, and I don’t think anyone will benefit from assigning blame. We’ll have to retract the paper and hopefully publish a correction next year, if anything comes out of the revised analysis. The university will also launch an investigation into how it could come to this.”

“Quite unnecessary. These things happen, after all,” John added. “I really see no need to dwell on it.”

James’s mistake, then, was thinking they’d slipped the noose. For a moment, he allowed himself to relax.

“You really can’t see it, can you?”

All eyes at the table turned to Francis, who kept his gaze fixed on the empty notepad in front of him, his pen clutched tightly between his fingers. James noted that he was wearing a suit, not his regular button-down with a cardigan. It seemed almost like he’d put on a uniform to steel himself for this meeting, and James had a sudden image of Francis looking at himself appraisingly in the mirror in his mind, cross but determined.

“I’m sorry, Francis, I can’t see what?”

To most everybody else, John’s tone of voice would have indicated polite patience, but James knew him better. His hand seized the edges of his tablet tightly, as if that could give him stability.

“We need to address the structural problems. We can keep putting out fires now, but we will ruin this project and our careers with it in the next two years.” Francis’s words were spoken in a calm, measured manner. That didn’t change their chilling effect. “I told you when Young dropped out. This isn’t sustainable.”

“Professor Crozier,” James said, wondering as the words left his mouth what was going to follow them. _Calm down_? _You’re right_? But it didn’t matter, because nobody looked at him anyway.

“That’s easy to say with the benefit of hindsight,” John said dismissively. At least he still seemed more intent on ending the debate. Of course, that would solve nothing, because Francis was right.

“We’ve tried it your way twice, and both times it ended in disaster. If I’m supposed to be second in command to this project, I think I deserve some input at least.”

Here, at last, some of Francis’s anger showed. He’d kept it well hidden, but James had gotten to know him. He saw the spots of colour on his cheeks, the way his knuckles turned white. He felt the urge to reach out and shake Francis out of it with a hand on his arm. Because _that_ wouldn’t go poorly.

“Sometimes I forget that you’re not as well-acquainted with the intricacies of academia, Francis,” John said. This was followed by a silence in which everyone knew the next one to speak would be dead.

Francis struggled with himself for what seemed like a good long minute. He pursed his lips, clenched and then unclenched his fist, and tilted his head as though to shake a crick in his neck. James wanted to look away, but he couldn’t.

When Francis spoke, his voice was quiet. “For your sake, John, I hope I’m wrong and you’re right.”


	5. Chapter 5

**February 2017**

There was a sound at the edge of his consciousness. It was pulling at him, wresting him from the place that was warm and comfortable to a place that was dark and disorienting and—

Francis sat up with a start. The alarm clock on his nightstand blinked a lazy 4:33 am. His phone was ringing.

He stared at it with bleary-eyed incomprehension for a moment before the urgency registered. Someone was calling him. When he picked up the phone, he nearly dropped it in his rush to answer it.

“What on God’s earth?” he said, which wasn’t a polite greeting, but at 4:33 am, it seemed the only appropriate one.

“Francis? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called you, I probably woke you. What’s the time? I have no idea what time it is.”

The voice resolved itself into something familiar, and then Francis realised it was James on the other end, sounding halfway to drunk and actively distressed.

“ _James?_ ” he mumbled. His voice sounded gravelly from sleep. He rubbed at his eyes angrily, trying to chase the stinging feeling from them every time he looked at something bright.

“I’m sorry, I—you should go back to sleep.”

“For God’s sake,” Francis muttered, rubbing at his eyes again. He could feel the beginning of a headache piercing sharply through the middle of his skull.

“John had a stroke,” James said, and the picture resolved itself with perfect clarity.

Francis was out of his bed before the impulse to move was overcome by the reality that he had nowhere to go. There was just him, in his briefs and an old Black Sabbath t-shirt, standing in the half-darkness of his bedroom, where the streetlight through the blinds gave everything the eerie appearance of being underwater.

“Is he…?”

The question stayed half-formed because to put anything into words seemed perilous.

“He’s in the hospital. Jane called me.” What Francis had taken for drunkenness was utter exhaustion, he realised. “The doctors say he’s speaking.”

That was something. Francis allowed himself to let out a breath, to calm the painful beating of his heart. Then he went back to his bed and sat on the edge. The wood floor of his bedroom was cold under his feet.

There were voices in the background of James’s call.

“Where are you now?” Francis asked.

“I’m still at the hospital. Jane asked me to bring her some clothes. She’s going to stay overnight.” Even as he was talking, James began to slow down, the jumble of words becoming more of a drawn-out slurring, as though he was struggling to put words together through the crash that was hitting him. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I just thought you should know, but I don’t want to keep you up.”

Francis could have hung up then. It was late, and there was nothing he could do for Franklin at this hour, except say a prayer he didn’t believe in. But Francis was also intrigued by the thought process that had led James to call him at the end of what, for him, had undoubtedly been a very bad night.

“Are you going to be alright?” he asked. He had half a feeling he was going to regret asking.

There was a moment’s silence on the other end of the line. Francis would have given a lot to be able to see James’s face.

“I think so,” James said quietly.

Francis decided to follow the impulse that had led him to ask the original question—this strange impulse of human kindness, spurred on by the pitiful figure James made in his mind.

“I’ll meet you at the main entrance of the hospital in twenty minutes, alright?”

* * *

He’d never seen James in streetwear. That was Francis’s first thought as he rounded the corner with his bike and spotted James, smoking a cigarette, in what was obviously a well-worn and well-loved black parka and a pair of combat boots. He’d shoved a beanie on his hair, and despite everything Francis found himself wondering what it would look like underneath, when it was less than perfectly styled. Probably endearing. James did everything with poise, even late-night hospital visits.

“I forgot you don’t have a car,” James said when Francis pulled up in front of him.

“It’s a short ride,” Francis assured him. When he met James’s eyes, there was an unguardedness to them that disarmed Francis. James was stunned to see him. It was written all over his face.

“Come on. I know a place that serves coffee round the clock. It’s not too far from here.”

James was still watching him like he was an apparition. Carefully, keeping one hand on the handlebars of his bike, he put his other hand on James’s back. “Walk with me.”

* * *

The coffee machine was closed for cleaning, but the place had a strong Turkish tea that was all the more comforting for its smell. Francis had relinquished his touch on James’s back reluctantly to lock up his bike outside while James had shivered in the doorway, both from the February cold and the exhaustion his body was most likely going through.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” he said when they were seated and had their hands wrapped around steaming mugs of tea. “I shouldn’t have—"

Francis shook his head. “Do you often get panic attacks?”

James made a surprised noise.

Francis took one of the sugar packets from a cup on the table and stirred some into his tea to pass the time. He didn’t even like sugar in his tea. He just didn’t want James to feel pressured.

“I…”

Francis took a sip of his tea. He found it didn’t taste half bad with the sugar.

“I didn’t even realise,” James said, finally. Francis looked up at him again—his face was pale, accentuated by the neon lamps of the café that emphasised the blue of the circles under his eyes and the dryness of his lips. He didn’t understand this strange impulse to comfort James. He just knew that he was tired enough to give into it without questioning it too much.

“You don’t have to feel bad about calling me,” Francis said. “That’s the last thing I’d like you to worry about tonight.”

James buried his face in his hands. “He mentored me. Since my master’s degree. He was the thesis advisor during my PhD. _He brought me onto this project_. All I can think about is how much I owe this man.”

Francis put a firm hand on James’s arm, and slowly peeled the man’s hand away from his face. “He’s still alive.”

“I know.” James took a deep, shuddering breath, the kind that was the last thing holding back tears. “There was a moment… when Jane called me from the waiting room, before we knew how bad it was…” He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t have to.

James dropped his gaze. His eyes caught on where Francis still held his arm, and he blinked. Francis gently drew his hand back.

They drank their tea slowly. James was unusually—but understandably, given the circumstances—quiet, and so Francis found himself in the unfamiliar position of having to come up with something to say. James looked at him with such gratitude, however, that Francis felt he did not mind Francis’s ineptitude at storytelling.

Eventually, the sun began to rise, and the smell of cinnamon and coffee began to fill the room.

“Oh God,” James said when he noticed, “I’ve kept you up all night, haven’t I.”

“Only a couple of hours.”

Francis was facing the realisation that he would have to supervise his bachelor’s class statistics exam in about three hours. Not enough time to get sleep, but about enough time to go home and get some proper clothes.

“You should go home and get some sleep. Call in sick. Take the day off,” Francis instructed. He hoped James would be too tired to argue.

“My car’s still at the hospital,” James said, and that was good enough for Francis.

He picked up some bougatsa and coffees to go before they went out. One cup he pressed into James’s hand, the other he placed securely in the cup holder of his bicycle. While they walked, he handed James pieces of the bougatsa. The man could do with some calories after a strenuous night.

It was odd, saying their goodbyes in front of the parking garage. James looked close to tears again—nothing some sleep wouldn’t fix—and Francis’s heart ached with the same tenderness he could neither explain nor wanted to examine. “Take care,” he said instead. James nodded.

Francis had Jopson supervise the exam. He locked the door to his office and closed his eyes with his head on his desk, then fell asleep. What a great mess of a day.

* * *

**February 2017**

Francis almost sat down in his usual seat by the side of the table. When he remembered there was no one to fill the one at the head, he went to stand by it, but he couldn’t bring himself to sit in it.

Franklin wasn’t coming back. It hadn’t been announced in so many words, but Francis was a realist. He had maybe another week or two before the letter would land on his desk, and then he would find himself in a position he’d never wanted, salvaging a project he never would have managed this way. And in about two years, when the whole thing wrapped up, he’d be saddled with its failings and then disposed of.

He could see it all so clearly from his vantage point at the head of the conference table that just the thought of beginning exhausted him utterly. In the end, he dragged a chair to the opposite end of the table and replaced the empty place with Franklin’s chair. He was just appraising his work when James entered the room.

James looked better than he had a week ago, but that wasn’t saying much. Though James said Jane had been keeping him updated with Franklin’s progress—he’d taken a first walk up and down the hallway yesterday, favouring his left leg—it would be a while before things felt normal again.

Francis paused, one hand on the back of his chair. James swallowed visibly, then took a seat at Francis’s right.

Francis sat as well. “How are you?” he asked. From his posture, he might as well have been talking to the fake oak of the table.

“’M fine,” James mumbled, similarly preoccupied with the table.

Francis let out a breath. “Good.”

James wasn’t fine. But Francis was going to let him pretend he was, because he didn’t know what the alternative would be—an expression of concern? On what basis?

The other department heads filed in, all similarly sombre. Francis shook their hands, even though he already felt the role he was playing slip like an ill-fitting costume. He wasn’t made for this—the politics of it, the leading. He only saw what needed to be done.

“Alright.” He forced himself to put his pen down and not reflexively reach for the glass of water to keep his hands occupied. “I trust you’ve all received my agenda?”

Nods of assent around the table. Francis noted them with satisfaction.

“Good. Now, there are two things I would like to get out of the way immediately before we can talk about how we’ll deal with the present situation.” He looked down at his blank legal pad. He never made notes before a meeting, but he found having the blank page before him centred his attention. When he gazed back up, he noticed James looking at him. “I will be terminating all the student assistant contracts at the end of this month. It’s an expense we shouldn’t have added to our budget to begin with, not when we can shift administrative tasks to senior faculty.”

James looked like he wanted to say something, but Francis moved on. “Secondly, I’m going to use the money that’s been freed up in the budget to fund Dr Fairholme’s field study. We’re coming up on the halfway mark, and we want to have some things to show at the end of this project. His proposal is innovative, and it fits our schedule perfectly.” He exhaled. “Any questions?”

“Francis, you can’t fire the student assistants.” James’s voice was weaker than Francis remembered. It sounded deep and hollow. No, James was not yet recovered.

“I believe I just did. I’ll inform them this afternoon.”

“No, I mean you legally _cannot_.” James sat up and leaned forward in his seat. “We’re past their probation period. You cannot fire them before their contract is up unless you can prove gross misdemeanours.”

Francis looked over at Gore, who pointedly avoided everybody else’s eyes.

“I don’t think that should be a problem.”

James let out a noise of frustration. “That’s _one_ of the student assistants at most, and even then, the burden of proof will be on us. The union will make sure the case is airtight. Believe me.”

“Hiring the student assistants in the first place was a mistake, Dr Fitzjames, and I am fixing that now. If we want this project to go anywhere—and I think everybody at this table has a significant stake in its success now, considering it’s likely to make or break a few careers—we’ll need to make a few hard choices.”

Francis wished James would understand. The man who had sat across from him in a little Turkish café might have understood. But the James who sat at the table now saw himself as Franklin’s agent, and as such he would not bend.

“I’m trying to prevent you from making _another_ mistake,” James insisted, one hand clenched into a fist on the table, “seeing as you don’t seem to know the legal situation very well.”

That stunned Francis into silence. “What are you saying?”

Maybe James realised what he had said. Calling back to Franklin’s last words to Francis—making sure to remind him he didn’t belong in academia. Francis hadn’t thought James would stoop so low.

“I just meant—"

Francis cut him off before James could finish the thought. “I know what you meant.”

He should have expected it. He should have expected it but didn’t, bewitched by James and his smile and his aftershave. James was just like Franklin when it came down to it. He would only see Francis’s value so long as it aligned with his own ideas about how things should be done.

But Francis was in charge now. “I hope you’ll be happy to hear that you’re taking over the conference preparations,” he said.

Francis was done. He was over this. He’d thought he’d built something with James, some kind of mutual understanding, but he should have known better. Something in Francis’s gut twisted, and he recognised the feeling—he’d felt it the first time his application had been rejected by the professorial selection committee, when Sophia hadn’t come to him afterwards, when he’d realised they weren’t friends, not in the way Francis had thought. Francis should probably stop hoping for things.

“If that’s your decision as acting head of the cluster,” James said coolly.

Francis couldn’t meet his eyes.

* * *

“Well, either you step down or you commit, Francis.”

Francis was seated in Thomas’s favourite armchair, with little Sara using his shoulder as a steppingstone to get to the top of the back rest and Hannah alternating between hanging on his leg and cheering her sister on. Thomas stood at the kitchen table, holding a mixer in one hand and a bowl of cream in the other.

“Whatever you do, you have to make a decision now.”

Francis—who had been in a bad mood before Sara decided to use him as a jungle gym—found himself chuckling. “I think for the time being, my function is quite clear.”

Thomas snorted out a laugh. “You know you shouldn’t be climbing up there, peanut.”

Sara wouldn’t let herself be deterred.

“She reminds me more and more of you,” Francis observed.

Hannah, clearly frustrated with being the only one stuck on the ground, held out her arms to Francis. “Up?” she asked.

Francis didn’t dare move. “In a minute,” he promised.

Thomas turned back to the whipped cream. He had put on an apron—to delight the girls, mostly, since it had been their Christmas present for him last year—and looked quite content in his domestic bliss. Francis envied him, just a little bit.

“It’s almost time for the raspberries,” Thomas announced. “Why don’t you get over here?”

Hannah was immediately at her father’s side. Sara took a bit longer, making a perilous climb down from her perch via Francis’s shoulder. Francis helped her down the last of the way. Sara scampered off to join her sister while Francis rose more slowly. When he joined them at the kitchen table, Thomas passed a bowl over to Francis. “Here, you can make the icing.”

Francis consulted the recipe, scrawled on a piece of paper in Thomas’s tight handwriting. Deciphering it was an art he’d taken years to master.

Francis made the icing. It was pink and tasted of raspberries. Sara and Hannah got to decorate the top of the cake with frozen raspberries, and when they were done, Thomas finished it off with a glaze. Sara applauded, delighted.

They sat down with espressos for Francis and Thomas and apple juice for the girls before they resumed their conversation.

“I can’t win, Thomas,” Francis said. “Either I step down and confirm that I’m not ready for leadership, or I keep on going and the mess that Franklin created proves the same thing.”

“Only one of these seems guaranteed,” Thomas pointed out, waving around a piece of cake on his fork. Hannah giggled when a raspberry fell off, and Thomas ruffled her hair affectionately before going to retrieve the raspberry.

“James isn’t happy with me in charge,” Francis said sourly. He thought again of the way James had looked at him during the meeting. After they’d worked together so well trying to salvage what could be salvaged from the mess with Gore’s paper. Francis shouldn’t have let himself think someone like James would be driven by anything but the considerations of his career. It must gall him to work under someone like Francis, with no background, no connections, no family in academia.

Thomas chuckled dryly. “No, I imagine he isn’t.”

“Whose side are you on?” Francis asked, feigning offense, but the glint in his eye gave him away.

“You’re no John Franklin, that’s obvious. Let the man be a little uncomfortable. He’ll come around,” Thomas said.

The hope that shot through Francis’s heart was a sharp pang—painful, and gone just as quickly. He wanted to believe Thomas. A hopeful part of him—the part of it that wasn’t buried under years of cynicism accumulated by the prolonged disappointments of academia—did believe him. But it was easier to never give in to that hope.

Francis gave Thomas a weary grin. “We both know this was the only way I’d ever get into a leadership position, Thomas. And it’s ruined before I even get the chance to prove myself.”

Thomas snorted. “I do love your optimism.” He’d sat through enough of Francis’s crises of faith; they both could look back on a long line of conversations like this one.

In the end, Francis’s hope had always outlasted the bitter cynicism he felt at the reality of his academic successes, or lack thereof. But Francis was growing tired.

“Can I tell you something, Francis?” Thomas asked. The careful tone, so unlike his friend, who always spoke candidly and without fear, struck Francis. “Of course.”

“Why do you want all this?” Thomas asked. “Maybe you should figure that out before you plough on and on until you’re old and you realise you don’t want what you have.” He gave Francis a moment to take in his meaning. “I have a wife. I have these two pumpkins." He ruffled Hannah’s hair. “And I’m happy in my lab. But I went in with my eyes open.”

It was true that Thomas’s CV was a bit more adventurous than Francis’s. He’d taken a year off after his bachelor’s, three after his master’s, then started working for a company that offered to pay for his PhD, basically begging him to devote his energies towards research. They probably hadn’t anticipated him staying in academia after that.

Francis closed his eyes. Sadly, his wishes had the tendency to come true only in the way he did not want them to.

One last time. He owed it to himself to try one last time.

“I’m going to give this one my best. If they don’t want me after that, they can—" He stopped himself with a look towards Thomas’s girls and swallowed the expletive he’d chosen. “You know.”

* * *

**March 2017**

It had been raining for the first two weeks of March. Not even the occasional afternoon downpour—it had been raining almost nonstop, and the river had risen high and flooded the holiday homes by the water while the university library had to place strategic buckets in places where the roof turned out to be leaky. The cafeteria, however, was still mercifully dry.

James felt the darkness of the weather forecast matched his mood. The people on the subway during his morning commute looked as miserable as he felt. He could spend his evenings at home on the couch with only his cat for company without fearing he’d be missed somewhere else, because nothing was happening.

Nothing, save for his weekly lunches with Francis.

They still kept up the lunches, and James privately wondered why. Maybe it was to keep up appearances in the face of the administration. Francis certainly hadn’t sought his input, and James wondered if Francis saw any of the irony in that when John hadn’t wanted to listen to him, either.

The sting of bitterness hadn’t eased. If anything, it had grown more pronounced over the last month as the understanding they had built melted in tandem with the last of the snow—not that there had been much of either to begin with. On some of the aforementioned nights on the couch, James found himself trying—and failing—to reconcile the man who had left his bed at four am for someone he didn’t even seem to like very much with the proud, haughty man who had disregarded James’s advice for a course of action that was already proving itself to be disastrous. The only answer he’d come up with, after a bottle of store-brand wine and a long conversation with Fagin, was that Francis was human like the rest of them.

That didn’t put James in any more of a conciliatory mood towards him.

Neither did the news that he’d found in his email inbox following his _Introduction to Social Psychology_ lecture this morning after he’d walked from the lecture hall to his office in the first dry spell of the month. The news sat between them now while Francis ate his latkes with quiet determination. James had abandoned his rice pudding. He didn’t have much of an appetite.

Francis halted in his movements for a moment. James held his breath. Francis was going to say something—but then he picked his fork back up and resumed his lunch.

James’s shoulders sagged. “How is Jopson’s dissertation going?” he asked. That, at least, was safe territory.

“He’s ahead of schedule,” Francis said curtly. James found himself transported back to their very first lunch meeting, when Francis insisted they should stick to business and James dreaded the years ahead of him. He couldn’t have guessed how right he would be.

“Is it going to be a monograph or a number of papers?” James asked, his determination once again winning over his good sense.

“His first paper was accepted for publication in January.”

James leaned back in his seat, only barely suppressing the huff of frustration. He was too old for passive-aggressiveness. He’d have to talk this one out.

“I saw the email about the lawsuit.”

Francis only paused briefly. “I assumed you did.”

“Do you have anything at all to say about it?” James said, trying not to let his exasperation show in his voice.

A moment’s amusement shone in Francis’s eyes, dry like kindling, bitter like whiskey. “What do you want to hear? I told you so?”

That shut James up. Francis laughed briefly when he saw it, then returned to his food.

“I just thought…” Alright, maybe he had wanted to hear Francis say he’d been right. But that wasn’t his only motivation. “We should talk about it.”

“What’s there to say?” Francis sighed and paused his eating long enough to rub a hand over his eyes. “The chancellery is upset because my decision regarding the student assistants has now landed the university with a lawsuit. They called a meeting next week to tell me how upset they are.”

“I was thinking we could perhaps discuss the decision-making process that led here—" James began, but Francis interrupted him.

“Please. Can we save this for another time?” He looked at James. “I’m tired.”

He did look tired. There were dark circles under Francis’s eyes, more pronounced than his usual ones. He sat stiffly, his shoulders hunched, and ate every piece of his food with a laboured precision that made eating seem like a terrible ordeal. Yet James could not bring himself to pity him in this moment.

“ _You’re_ tired?” he asked, letting the incredulity he felt bleed into his voice because—quite frankly— _he_ was tired, mostly of Francis’s insistence that every bad thing that befell him was the fault of others.

“Yes, I’m tired,” Francis insisted.

James scoffed. “Maybe you wouldn’t be so tired if you could still share work with some student assistants.”

The first emails about the conference in October had fluttered into James’s inbox last week—budgets, invitations, venues—and James had done his best to answer them until he had to close his eyes and focus on not crying from exhaustion, something he’d last done in the second year of his PhD. He knew how to deal with these crises productively.

He’d called Dundy and asked him to take over the next batch of interviews. Dundy had done so, no questions asked, and James had told him how grateful he was. And here he was, not blaming his problems on anyone, like a goddamn adult.

“Oh, save it,” Francis muttered. He shot a glare across the table.

James grimaced, then reached for his bag. Francis looked a little surprised when he stood. “I sincerely hope you’ll consider my advice in the future. After having yours rejected by John so often, I thought maybe you would be more receptive.” His eyes rested on Francis’s stunned face, wondering if there was something else that he could say to make him see reason. There wasn’t.

When James emerged from the cafeteria onto the walking path back to Erebus, he discovered it had started to rain again.

* * *

Dundy had brought homemade cheese dip and a bag of nachos. James—who would have sworn he didn’t want company up until he opened the door—was delighted by this until he had to make a grab for Fagin, who, as always, attempted to use the open door as his road to freedom. With an armful of angry cat, James let his friend in.

“I know what you need,” Dundy announced as James went to the kitchen to find beers for them and deposit his cat somewhere.

“Do you?” he called back to Dundy, who was already making himself at home on the sofa in the bedroom that doubled as a living room. James passed him a beer when he returned.

“I do.” Dundy grinned broadly. James sat down next to him, and they clinked their bottles. “You need to see the inside of a club again.”

“No, Dundy, absolutely not, that’s not—"

This was exactly the kind of well-meaning attempt at cheering him up that James had dreaded.

“Methinks the Lady doth protest too much.” Dundy was still grinning.

“You brought nachos!” James pointed out accusingly. “That was a decoy!”

Dundy had invited himself for a movie night, which James, stressed out and tired as he was, had found the maximum of human interaction he could tolerate. He was _fine_ ; he just needed to sleep.

“Jesus, James, we’re going to eat the nachos before the club. You’d think you’ve forgotten how to go out.” Dundy shook his head in mock disappointment.

“I don’t have anything to wear,” James protested.

“I know that’s a lie.” Dundy made to get up. “Do you want me to find the mesh shirts in your closet or can you do that yourself?”

James scrambled to keep him on the couch. “You wouldn’t. And anyway, I threw them away.”

Dundy narrowed his eyes. “Would you lie to me? Your friend?”

James tried a different strategy. “ _You_ don’t have anything to wear.”

A broad grin spread across Dundy’s face. “That’s what _you_ think.”

James leaned back on the couch, defeated. Dundy would not be deterred from this course of action, and alright, maybe James was a little glad to be forced out of his self-pity. “Where are we even going to find a club that’s not full of our students?”

“The trick,” Dundy explained, “is to stay one step ahead of them.”

* * *

The club had a nautical theme, which James learned via the incredibly tacky rainbow-coloured cartoon anchor that was obviously the club’s logo over the door. James rolled his eyes, but more to not give Dundy the satisfaction of having been right. Picking out clothes and applying eyeliner, finding a half-full container of biodegradable body glitter that he first applied liberally to his face and then Dundy’s hair, had brought out all the excitement that clubbing had once held for him. The walk from the subway had been short, but it had sufficed to nearly freeze James’s toes off in his thigh-high boots. Luckily, the line in front of the club wasn’t abysmally long.

“Told you this place was too underground for the students,” Dundy whispered triumphantly.

“Maybe they don’t like themed clubs,” James retorted, sarcastically. The truth was, he was a little miffed that he hadn’t known there was a theme. He’d have picked a different outfit.

“Sailors are peak gay culture,” Dundy announced.

James gave him a critical look. “Which students have you been talking to?”

“What?”

“ _Peak gay culture_?” James asked.

“Hush. You’re just old.”

They got their hand stamps from a short man in a sleeveless top and tight black pants held up by suspenders, a flat cap on his dark curls, who gave them both a bright smile and wished them a fun night. They left their coats at the coat check, where Dundy revealed he’d been wearing a second pair of much tighter, and much shinier pants under his regular pants and a crop top under his sweater. James waited, a little lost, while Dundy went to grab them drinks.

The inside of the club looked like much every former industrial space converted into a dance floor James had ever seen. The walls that had been added to the once-open floor were cheap, with pictures of open ocean, ships, and sandy beaches painted over them (glitter applied liberally). The ceiling was low, and the place gave the impression of a labyrinth with the way the walls curved, ready for people to lose themselves for a night.

What was he doing here?

Before his thoughts could follow down a more existentialist path, Dundy returned with the drinks: two bright cocktails with little parasols decorating them.

“Bottoms up,” he toasted over the thumping of the music, “But not actually. These were expensive, and we should probably hang on to them.”

They found their way to the first floor, which was playing early 2000s classics. It reminded James of his PhD days, when he’d actually gone to clubs regularly. Standing here with Dundy, it almost felt like nothing had changed, except that Dundy’s hair was starting to grey and James—though he wouldn’t have thought it possible—somehow felt even more tired than he had back then.

Still, the appreciative looks cast his way did a little to lift James’s mood. He smiled at a guy who was batting his eyes at him from across the room but quelled the impulse to throw him a kiss. It was good to know he could still pull off the boots.

After a while, when they finished their cocktails, they dropped the glasses off at the bar and headed to a different floor—the room was smaller, the walls closer, and the DJ played a rhythmic selection of hip hop and R&B that invited them to dance. James felt the relief like a wave crashing through his bones when he closed his eyes and started moving his body to the music. It was just like old times. The tension was unwinding like a cascade, worry by worry fading away, until there was just the music, the movements of his body, Dundy’s encouragements and prompts, and the grins on both their faces.

After what might have been minutes or hours—James had no way of telling—they found themselves back at the bar. The smell of cigarettes wafted over to them from the smoking area, and James considered it for a moment, but found he didn’t crave a cigarette, not really.

“Thank you,” he said, clasping Dundy’s shoulder. The glitter in his hair had rained down on his forehead, his nose, and his shoulders; his eyeliner was smeared a little; and he looked as elated as James was feeling.

“Thank you for coming along, Fitz,” Dundy said sincerely. “You’ve been so lost in the thesis, and with John’s stroke… I was worried for you.”

“I’m not worried as long as I have you to watch out for me,” James said, and he was grinning but also surprised by how much he meant it. A close friend in his late thirties was a gift he shouldn’t have taken for granted.

Dundy was smiling, and James was sure the same expression was on his face—the kind of happiness that was hard to wipe away, that still had him smiling on the subway back home, together with the late-night stragglers and early morning commuters, some of which gave him strange and some of which gave him appreciative looks. Not even the headache that accompanied him through Sunday could quite wipe away the smile.


	6. Chapter 6

**March 2017**

“You told the chancellery _what_?”

By some miracle of self-control, Thomas wasn’t shouting. It seemed everyone around him had more good sense than Francis.

“I told them that if they wanted the project run properly, maybe they should have hired someone actually interested in supervising a cluster instead of Franklin, who passed on the responsibility at the first possibility, and that they shouldn’t hold me responsible for problems that their poor choice in personnel created.”

Thomas was steering him down the corridor, looking around as though he was still afraid of someone overhearing them. Francis hadn’t expected to see him outside the meeting room when he exited it. He had sweated through his suit, and felt strangely free. But that moment of freedom hadn’t lasted, as Thomas was trying his utmost to haul Francis back from his moment of levity onto the cold hard ground of reality.

“Yeah, I heard you the first time,” Thomas said. “What the fuck happened to _trying one last time_?”

To add insult to injury, there were steps coming down the hallway, and then—like a cloak-clad harbinger of stern discussions—James turned the corner, probably having had a plan similar to Thomas’s, but being about five minutes too late to enact it. He took one look at Thomas, Francis, and the respective expressions on their faces, and came to his own conclusions.

“Ah,” was all James said. And then, “How bad is it?”

“Well, they didn’t fire this idiot, but I’m beginning to think they should have,” Thomas grumbled. Was everyone against Francis now?

“The conference is in less than half a year, Francis,” James hissed. “Really, you couldn’t pull yourself together for that?”

Francis wasn’t going anywhere. He hadn’t even done anything, besides tell the chancellery what he thought of them putting politics over competence. If they didn’t appreciate Francis’s input, that wasn’t his problem. Sophia’s email from this morning had nothing to do with it.

_Dear Francis, I thought it best if you would hear it from me. The chancellery has decided not to implement any major changes to the project at this stage. They think continuity is important to bring the thing to a successful end. The changes you have made so far that have been approved will remain so, but any future changes to Prof. em. Franklin’s schedule will not—_

“I don’t have to listen to this,” Francis announced, “not when you never stood up to Franklin. I’m only in this mess because you thought there was some _middle ground_ that we could tread, when you knew damn well he was mismanaging the project.”

“Francis…” Thomas warned.

“Don’t _Francis_ me,” Francis shot back.

“Do tell me how you feel,” James said icily. “As I recall, most of the bad press recently has focussed on _your_ mismanagement of the cluster. But don’t let that stop you.”

Francis had seen the press. It wasn’t like it was _sensationalist_ —no tabloid could spin academic mismanagement so that it was appealing to their readership—but the fact that the articles were so serious made it worse. He could already picture the next conference, the whispers and strained conversations that would dance around the topic.

“Maybe if you would pull your weight every once in a while, we wouldn’t be in this situation,” Francis said. James reeled.

“That’s enough,” Thomas said. He stepped between Francis and James, took a firm hold of Francis’s arm, and locked eyes with Francis. Behind him, James’s face had gone very white. “We’re going to walk away now,” Thomas said calmly, but with the hint of a threat in his voice that let Francis know he was serious. “Have a good day, Dr Fitzjames.”

James looked like he was going to say something. Francis saw the muscle in his cheek twitch. So the man did have a breaking point. The glare he levelled at Francis led him to believe he’d just reached it.

Thomas let go of Francis’s arm in the courtyard. The sun shone very brightly for a spring day and hurt Francis’s eyes. The headache he’d had since this morning—briefly alleviated by the release of telling the university administration to go fuck themselves—was returning with a vengeance.

“Francis.” Thomas had dropped the sharp tone in his voice. He sounded concerned, and Francis couldn’t stand that—not now, not as he was ruining everything. “What’s going on?”

Two students greeted Francis as they went through the double doors. A couple of pigeons were pecking at cigarette butts over by the fountain. Francis could hear distant voices from the classrooms facing the courtyard where the next round of lectures was now commencing. Everything looked as it always did, and yet nothing felt right.

“It’s nothing, Thomas,” Francis said. Nothing Thomas could fix, anyway.

* * *

James had been too worked up to make his way back to _Erebus_. He couldn’t face his office, not when the empty office reminded him of John’s absence and everything that came with it. The empty classroom on the second floor where the student assistants had been haunted him similarly. It was all tangled up in this mess of a project, a mess James would give anything to forget. He was half-tempted to call John, except Jane told him John was often still confused, and James—as much as he wanted guidance—knew better than to expect comfort from John, especially now.

He had watched Francis march down the red linoleum-floored hallway, more or less dragged by his friend Blanky, and had suddenly understood the impulse that made people turn to manslaughter. There was something in the self-righteous expression on Francis’s face, the set of his shoulders, that had made James want to punch the ever-loving daylights out of him.

He had made his way to _Ross_ instead. The lobby of the building was half full of students working on papers—James spotted his perpetual PhD student John Bridgens and nodded at him as he passed by. He was sitting with a student James felt he should recognise but didn’t. They were hunched over Bridgens’s battered laptop—the back covered in nuclear disarmament and rainbow-flag peace movement stickers—and James, in passing, only heard the other student moan, “But why are letters of motivation so _hard_?” before he moved on.

Dundy’s door was cracked open the usual couple of inches, and James could hear the fast clacking of Dundy’s keyboard from down the corridor. He had stopped to pick up coffee at the French café—he was angry, not inconsiderate. Knowing Dundy, he would appreciate the break from coding interviews.

“He’s going to ruin us,” James announced as he set down the coffee on Dundy’s desk.

“Who?”

Dundy took note of the coffee and gave a nod to James, but didn’t tear his eyes away from the Excel sheet longer than necessary. James noticed that his shirt was wrinkled, as if it hadn’t been ironed before wearing, which wasn’t like Dundy at all.

“Francis,” he said while collapsing onto the couch that had been Dundy’s only request when John hired him as a postdoc. God only knew how they had squared it with the fire regulations, but since then, Dundy had been the owner of a shitty second-hand couch. James had napped there on more than one occasion.

“Mhm,” Dundy agreed.

“It’s like he doesn’t even care that my name’s tied up with the cluster as much as his now. All he can see is his pride, and how the administration has supposedly _insulted_ it.” James waved a dismissive hand, then reached for his chai latte. A long sip fortified him for the next part of his tirade. “And the worst part is, I don’t think he realises he’s doing the exact same thing they’re doing to him! Sabotaging me at every turn. I would actually like this conference to go well.”

Dundy sighed, finally tearing his eyes away from the Excel sheet long enough to appraise the poor sight James made and take a sip of his coffee. “He’s just a dick.” He shrugged. “The sooner you accept that, the better.”

The image of Francis, leading his bike on one hand that was also balancing a plate of bougatsa, powdered sugar in the corner of his mouth, handing James slices with an expression in his eyes that James had never seen on him before, arose unbidden. Without the knowledge of that night, James might have been inclined to agree with Dundy—but he wasn’t angry, not truly. Disappointment hit closer to the mark. He couldn’t forget the way Francis had kept his smile, gap-toothed and easy, even with dark circles under the neon lights of the café.

“He’s not—"

Dundy’s raised eyebrow stopped James in his tracks. Why was he defending Francis? He’d been contemplating manslaughter not twenty minutes ago. He also swallowed the second thing he’d been about to say, “ _I just want him to like me_ ,” which was an admission he’d keep to himself for now.

“Did you want something specific?” Dundy asked when James lapsed into silence.

“No. Why?”

James drew himself up from his lounging position. There _was_ something odd about Dundy—

“I have an interview scheduled in twenty minutes,” Dundy said. Then he gave James a meaningful look. “I kind of want to finish up this pile before I add more data to it,” he supplied when James didn’t take the hint.

“Oh,” James said dumbly, “Sorry.”

He got up from the couch and straightened his jacket.

“It’s alright,” Dundy was quick to add. “Just with the additional interviews I’m doing for you, things are a bit busy, right?”

“Yes, of course.” James felt guilty. He’d been so caught up in his frustration that he’d forgotten he wasn’t going to bother anyone his problems like—how had he phrased it?—a goddamn adult.

“Dundy, I hope you know I’m forever grateful for your help.”

The pinched set of Dundy’s forehead relaxed, and he grinned. “Just keep bringing me coffee, and I might believe you.”

* * *

The _ping_ of a new email in his inbox pulled Francis from where he was pointedly _not_ hyperventilating, doubled over on a spare chair he kept in the corner of his room for when multiple postdocs showed up to a meeting. It registered dimly through the rushing of blood in his ears. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to deal with it. He put his head back in his hands.

The _ping_ came again.

Francis supposed that referring to it as the same noise was misleading, since it was highly likely that the sound announced a second new email, rather than a reminder of the arrival of the first. Then again, he had long reached the point where the responsibilities bled together until it hardly mattered—at least not enough to move him from his place of contemplation of where he had gone wrong.

His phone rang.

Francis sat up, his mouth hanging half open in disbelief. Could he not have ten minutes for an undisturbed crisis? Or had there not been room in the budget for that?

He wasn’t going to answer it. He was going to stay right here, on the most uncomfortable chair his office had to offer, and contemplate the forces working against him until he calmed down—or until it was six pm and time to go home.

They would saddle him with all the responsibility. The chancellery had made as much clear during the meeting. Francis could, of course, step down, but his contract would not be renewed if he did. The real reason they had not yet given him tenure, he thought, was that he was just more useful without. They would saddle him with all the responsibility and leave him none of the agency he needed to turn it into something that wouldn’t end his career as effectively as quitting now. All out of the misguided notion that Franklin’s legacy was somehow more important than Francis’s—actual, ongoing—career. He couldn’t win. Despite what he had told Thomas, he couldn’t win.

There was a knock on his door.

Francis refrained from barking a frustrated _“not now”_ solely because he had no way of knowing who was on the other side of that door. He would not stoop so low as to let out his frustrations on innocent students.

“Yes?” he said instead.

The door slid open an inch, and Jopson’s face peeked through the gap.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Professor Crozier.”

Francis sighed. “What is it?”

“I tried to call you,” Jopson added, “only you didn’t answer the phone, so I wanted to see if you were in and…”

“What is it?” Francis interjected again. He was dimly aware that he shouldn’t let his frustration out on Jopson. Then again, he shouldn’t be doing a great many things.

Jopson opened the door a little wider and slipped into Francis’s office before closing it quietly. “The department came back with some questions about the _Political Conflict_ seminar. They have concerns about the concept.”

“Is this because we’re spending two weeks on teaching—" Francis didn’t finish the thought. He could already feel the tell-tale anger welling up again, and a spat with the department was the last thing he needed. “I’m sure you can figure it out. If not, we can talk about it at the meeting next week.”

Jopson did his best to hide his surprise, but Francis had worked with him for over three years. He knew Jopson.

“Of course,” Jopson said. He cast one last hesitant look at Francis, but Francis simply went over to his computer and pulled up a random script. He began typing and kept at it until he heard the soft sound of the door closing.

* * *

Thomas pulled the door behind himself closed dejectedly. Edward—who had not moved from his spot on Thomas’s desk—closed the laptop he had balanced on his leg. The presentation could wait.

“How is he?”

Thomas fell back into his chair with a frown. Edward set the laptop aside.

“Not receptive,” Thomas said.

Edward closed his eyes. The sounds of _Terror_ were always calming to him—the hum of the printer room two doors over, the steady clacking of a keyboard from Irving’s office, the footsteps in the hallways and the muttering of students. Except now the thought of Professor Crozier in his office, in whatever mood the events since Professor Franklin’s stroke had left him, disturbed that calm atmosphere.

“We have to do something.”

“Oh, come on, Ned.” Thomas snorted. “What are we going to do? He’s our _boss_.”

Edward tapped his fingers against the metal case of his laptop. “I’m thinking.”

“Shouldn’t you be practising your presentation?” Thomas asked.

Edward feigned shock. “Are you saying I’m not using my time with you productively? If you want, I’ll leave.”

“No, no, no, that’s not what I meant!” Thomas was half out of his seat before he noticed the grin on Edward’s face. He slumped back down in his seat and crossed his arms, but Edward was a lot surer that Thomas wasn’t hurt by a little joke than he had been just six, seven months ago. This thing between them had been building slowly but steadily, at times seeming so fragile that Edward dared hardly breathe. He liked Thomas a little too much to ruin it.

“So, Crozier.”

“ _Professor_ Crozier,” Thomas said, who, for someone in the third year of their PhD, still insisted on titles a whole lot. Then again, if Little remembered his PhD correctly, insisting on titles was about the only thing that got one through it—after all, those damn things had to mean something if he worked so hard to get one.

“Professor Crozier,” Edward repeated with a small nod. “And whatever crisis has him locked up in his office.”

He gestured towards the wall that separated Thomas’s office from Professor Crozier’s. The professor’s office looked like someone had taken a bite out of it, because that was essentially what had happened in order to fit more than four offices onto the floor—a third of Crozier’s office had been made into the space Thomas now occupied.

“To be honest, I don’t think he even really heard what I wanted from him,” Thomas said. “He just looked so sad.”

Edward, making a quick calculation on whether or not he should share a rumour, pursed his lips. “I heard there was a lawsuit,” he said.

That would drive a man to desperation, especially a middle-aged professor on a temporary contract. The problem was, Edward didn’t know any senior faculty that would be willing to answer a few questions for him.

“A lawsuit?”

So Thomas hadn’t heard anything. Edward had half hoped that if Crozier hadn’t told his postdocs, he’d at least told Thomas, who was, for all intents and purposes, the apple of his eye. Edward shrugged.

“I don’t know more than that.”

“Who did you even hear that from?”

“Alright, so you know Henry Peglar from my master’s econometrics seminar, right?” Thomas just frowned, so Edward waved it off. “He knows someone who works for Dr Fitzjames, who overheard something about a lawsuit. But I don’t know who we could ask.”

“Dr Blanky,” Thomas offered.

“Who?” Edward asked.

“He’s a friend of Professor Crozier. I met him—oh, it doesn’t matter. We talked. He thought it was funny—we have the same first name.” Thomas gave a half-shrug. “It was just an idea.”

“No, keep talking,” Edward said, “I think you may be onto something here.”

Their planning was interrupted only briefly when Edward let himself be distracted by the shy smile Thomas directed at him. He even managed to finish his presentation before returning to his office. All in all, a productive afternoon.


	7. Chapter 7

**April 2017**

James hadn't spoken to him for a week.

A little over a year ago, that wouldn’t have concerned Francis as much as it did now. The first sign that it did affect him was the sad state of his Fittonia, which he discovered late on Friday night after miserably turning down a round of drinks with Thomas Blanky. Its leaves were hanging limply in its pot, and Francis realised he hadn't watered any of his houseplants in recent days, possibly since the meeting with the chancellery. He withstood the urge to slump down at his kitchen table and order pizza—nothing would be gained by that. Instead, he retrieved a pitcher from a bottom cabinet and set about fixing one mistake he had control over.

He was fucking it all up. In his heart, he had come to terms with the fact there was no one he could blame but himself. At least by the time he was finished, his Fittonia looked slightly happier.

He planned to spend Saturday answering student emails and finishing a review for a paper that had been sitting in his inbox for a little over a month. The April rain he woke to reaffirmed his decision, and he spent a calm breakfast eating toast and ignoring the news app on his phone. He’d just sat down at his desk with a second cup of coffee when the doorbell rang. Thinking it was probably a delivery for a neighbour, he went to the door.

“We’re already upstairs,” Thomas Blanky’s voice called from outside the door when Francis went to answer the bell.

“ _We_?” Francis said even as he opened the door, then wished he hadn’t.

Thomas was standing there, alright, in his dark coat that had seen better days. He was trailed by an apologetic Ross, as well as an apprehensive Edward Little and a positively terrified Thomas Jopson. Francis moved to shut the door in their face, but Thomas caught it before he could close it.

“So kind of you to invite us in.” Thomas pushed past Francis into his apartment. Francis dazedly hugged Ross hello, then stared confusedly at both Little and Jopson, who looked somewhere between uncomfortable and horrified.

“Why are you friends with my staff?” Francis said to Thomas, who was making himself at home in Francis’s kitchen.

“You’ll not believe it, but they came to me.”

When Francis made his way to the kitchen, Thomas had unfolded his extra chairs and set them on the other side of the table. He pointed to Francis and then to the opposite chair. “Sit,” he instructed.

Francis looked to Ross, a little lost. Ross gave a little smile and a helpless shrug that usually meant, _“It’s better to just go along with it”_. Francis, yielding to Ross’s superior wisdom, sat. They both knew Thomas ran this ship.

“We know you’ve been having a tough time of it, lately, Frank,” Thomas said when they were all seated.

Francis just barely refrained from rolling his eyes. “I’m going to need some more coffee for this talk.” He made to get up, but changed his mind when he saw the expression on Thomas’s face. His lip twitched unhappily.

“I’ll get it,” Ross said, and though Francis hadn’t lived in this apartment when they were together, he still owned the same shitty second-hand coffeemaker. With the comforting sound of Ross clanging together kitchen implements in the background, Francis leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“Spit it out, then, Thomas.”

Thomas shook his head. “I think Dr Little has something to say first.”

“Me?” Edward said up straighter. Thomas gave him an encouraging nod, as did Jopson.

“Alright.” Edward cleared his throat. “Professor Crozier, next time when we come to you with a department request, could you possibly—" He sighed deeply.

Thomas rolled his eyes. “Spit it out.”

Edward looked to Jopson, as though Jopson—who was suspiciously pale—was in any position to help him. “You can’t just ignore a department request, even when the cluster is giving you problems.”

“There you go.” Thomas gave Edward an encouraging pat on the back that seemed to shake Edward to his very core. Ross returned from the coffee maker and began dispensing cups for all of them. Francis uncrossed his arms and drew his cup in front of himself like a shield.

“I heard what happened at the meeting with the chancellery,” Ross said.

Francis scoffed. “From your uncle, I bet.”

“And from Thomas,” Ross added.

Damn it all. He butted heads with Thomas often enough, and he could deal with that. He could even disregard Edward’s concern and whatever Jopson was doing here by telling them it was none of their business, but Ross—Ross looked disappointed. Francis couldn’t meet his eyes. Ross and he weren’t the kinds of friends who commented on each other’s life choices. That he was here now meant something.

“It was… badly done,” Francis admitted.

“You’ve fought tooth and nail for this position. You built the department from the ground up.” Ross kept one hand on his coffee mug, the other one on Francis’s forearm. “I don’t understand why now that you have what you wanted, you throw it all away.”

“I never wanted it like this,” Francis griped. “I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Self-pity has never looked good on you, Frank,” Thomas said wryly. Francis cast him a dark look. Edward and Jopson looked more uncomfortable by the minute.

Ross withdrew his hand from Francis’s arm. “We’re here because you have to make a decision,” he said, “Right now, you can still salvage something—the department, or the cluster, or both if you try hard enough. But a little further down this path, and you’re going to find yourself with very few friends.”

Francis buried his face in his hands. “You don’t understand. It’s too late. They’ve already decided everything. And James is never going to go along with anything I do, not after—"

He stopped. There was nothing more he wanted to say on the subject. Unfit for academia, that’s how Franklin had seen him, and that was how James saw him, too. Francis could only prove them right at every turn.

“Nonsense,” Ross said.

“Your uncle—” Francis began, and Ross cut him off. “My uncle is not the entire chancellery, though it may seem that way at times. Francis, I’m telling you, if you pull yourself together now, you can make this project into something. I’ve seen Fairholme’s proposal for the field study. That is ground-breaking stuff.”

Francis and the stupid flicker of hope inside his chest. He would be a happier man without it—he just knew it. It was that flicker of hope that led him to throw himself at hopeless causes time and time again.

Surprisingly, it was Edward who backed Ross up. “We’re here for you, Professor. All of us are ready to take on more responsibility in the department if that’s what it takes to get the project back on track.” He and Jopson exchanged a glance, then Jopson gave Francis an encouraging nod.

“We are like sailors who must rebuild their ship on the open sea, Professor.”

“Don’t quote Neurath at me,” Francis grumbled. But he smiled, because if he needed someone to know he wasn’t truly mad anymore, it was Jopson. “And James?”

“Talk to the man, goddamn it,” Thomas cursed. “He almost lost his mentor. I doubt he really hates your guts.”

Francis wasn’t sure if he was brave enough for that conversation with James, not after the rollercoaster of their relationship so far. But given the weight of his friends’ expectant gazes and the trust they were placing in him, he felt he owed it to them to try.

“Oh, alright,” he said. “But you’re paying for my funeral if he mauls me to death, Thomas.”

* * *

Ross lingered by the door as Thomas, Edward, and Jopson said their goodbyes. “If it’s alright,” he said, “I’d like to stay a moment.” Francis nodded.

They went back to the kitchen, where five abandoned, half-empty coffee mugs still decorated the table. Francis sat down. His legs hurt. His head hurt. It was possible that he hadn’t slept very well. “Thank you,” he said, though he didn’t feel particularly grateful yet. He knew that they had been right to tell him off. The rest would come later.

“I’m going to tell you something that might hurt a little,” Ross said.

Francis grimaced—he’d even lost the habit of smiling, he realised. “More than being told off by my postdocs?”

Ross laughed, then shook his head. “I’m glad we’re friends, Francis.”

“Me too.” Francis frowned. He had wondered why Ross had come along since he went to Thomas with most of his worries these days, but the presence of Edward and Jopson had overshadowed that particular puzzle.

“Do you remember Lapland?” Ross asked.

Francis’s mug of coffee was empty. He reached for it nonetheless. “Yes,” he said, more to the mug than to Ross. Five months of living in each other’s pockets and then— “Of course I remember.”

He remembered every shape the memory had taken, in fact—from fondly recalled to stuffed into the mental equivalent of the back of the closet to dusted off and reconsidered in a fond light.

“When we came back,” Ross said, the words slow to leave his mouth. Francis wanted to tell him to spit it out, resisted the impulse. Not every band-aid was best ripped off. This one was going to hurt either way. “I had a feeling you were acting differently. Towards me.”

Francis was in no particular mood to reconsider mistakes he’d made a lifetime ago. They had moved on, spoken little about it. “James, I—”

“I think,” Ross said, quickly now, “that you figured it would end, and you were pre-empting the pain of it. Bracing yourself for something that hadn’t even happened yet.”

Francis opened his mouth, then closed it again. Swallowed around the lump in his throat.

“I’m just afraid you’re doing it again,” Ross said, “You’re so convinced something is going to ruin you, you’d rather ruin it first.”

“That—” Francis said, wanting to tack on _is not true_ but finding he couldn’t. He remembered seeing campus again after five months in the snow, all the people and parties. And then there was _him_ , sticking out like a sore thumb. Ross was bound to notice eventually.

“I’m sorry,” Ross said.

It had the unexpected effect of making Francis laugh. “Perhaps I should be the one apologising.”

“I wasn’t entirely blameless,” Ross said. He looked like he wanted to elaborate for a moment but didn’t. It was for the better. Not every past memory needed to be drudged up on the same afternoon. “I should have said something then. I figured the next best thing is saying something now.”

Francis nodded. He kept his mouth shut tightly, which was all the safeguard he had against the feeling of tears burning in his eyes—exhaustion, or gratitude, or the sheer fucking embarrassment of receiving life advice from his ex-boyfriend. Eventually, he drew a deep breath.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Yeah,” Ross agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jopson is quoting Neurath because he's a nerd:
> 
>  _“We are like sailors who must rebuild their ship on the open sea, never able to dismantle it in dry-dock and to reconstruct it there out of the best materials. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction.”_  
>  ―Otto Neurath


	8. Chapter 8

**October 2017**

James had been staring at the phone receiver at his hand. For how long, he was unable to say. The flat tone of the disconnected line rang quietly through his empty office. His hand felt numb. He was breathing faster, he realised, and he was sweating through his shirt, even though a sharp wind had picked up outside and _Erebus_ ’ central heating seemed to be out again.

They had just—

“James!”

James flinched at the sound of his name, but it was only Dundy standing in the door of his office. He looked like he had just been passing by and been stopped by the image of James, motionless, with the receiver in his hand.

“Are you alright?”

“They—"

He couldn’t quite bring himself to say it yet. It felt too terrible, too surreal, like a great forward momentum come to a sudden, crashing halt. The car accident of James’s habilitation thesis.

“They—"

“Hey now.” Dundy was by his side in an instant, gently coaxing the receiver from James’s hand, which was squeezed around the plastic receptacle tightly. Dundy replaced the receiver, then took both of James’s hands between his own. “What’s going on?”

“They—" James swallowed; forced himself to say it even though that would make it real, “—they cancelled the rest of my interviews. All of them.”

Dundy let go of James’s hand and pressed one to his mouth. “Oh, bloody Christ.” He shook his head. “Did they say why?”

James grimaced. “There were complaints to the company. According to them, the interview quality declined since I took it back over.”

“James…”

“I know, Dundy.” James shook his head. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have tried to do so many things at once.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.” Dundy rested a comforting hand on James’s arm. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry. This is—I can’t imagine a lot of things that are worse.”

“That’s most of my thesis gone out of the window, Dundy. I don’t have half the data I need.” It had been sinking in slowly, like floating down a deep pool. James had a feeling he was about to reach the bottom. “Everything John expected of me. The cluster. Leading the department. I’m fucking it all up.”

“You are leading the department,” Dundy said, shaking James softly, “You’re leading the department and you’re organising the conference and you’re writing your thesis.”

“Oh God, the conference.”

If he collapsed on the spot, nobody would be able to blame him. He would expire, and no one would miss him, and the university and possibly the world would be better off without him. Would Francis be relieved or disappointed if he died?

Dundy gave him a look of concern. “Are you up for the opening tonight?”

James rubbed at his eyes, trying to shake the sting in them. He wasn’t going to cry now—if he started, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop before seven pm tonight. The caterer was already at work downstairs, and James had picked up his suit from the dry cleaner’s this morning. If he was going down, he would at least look fabulous doing it.

“I have a hair appointment in an hour. That’ll set me right.”

“James…”

“I’ll be fine, Dundy. I just—I can’t think about this right now.”

Dundy let him withdraw and attempt to pull himself back together. He watched James carefully; James pretended he didn’t see it. Outside, a gust of wind blew the rain against his window in a sudden patter.

“Promise me we’re getting a beer next week,” Dundy said. He looked genuinely hurt.

James crossed the distance back and embraced him, trying to lay all the gratitude he felt for Dundy’s concern into it. “I promise. I’ll see you tonight, Dundy.”

* * *

The hall was already packed tight with people when Francis and Jopson squeezed through the doors. An impromptu coat check had been set up and staffed with what looked to Francis like underpaid bachelor students. Behind the coat check, the attendants who had been mingling in panels all day were now engaged in lively conversation.

Francis greeted the few familiar faces he spotted as he and Jopson made their way to the auditorium. The knot in his stomach had not resolved. If anything, it tightened spitefully as Francis approached the double doors. He could hear Gore already on the microphone, probably giving the introduction. They were late.

Francis fussed with his suit jacket, which was warm and uncomfortable. He couldn't shake the feeling that people were staring at him.

“Shall we?”

Francis turned, a little surprised, to Jopson, who was smiling at him not with the nervous deference of a PhD student, but with the intuition of a friend who knew exactly the kind of nerves Francis must be facing. In an odd way, seeing Francis taken down a peg had been good for Jopson.

Francis nodded firmly. “To battle,” he said with a wink. They pushed through the doors.

Most of the first third of the seats had filled up, though the crowd thinned towards the end of the room. Gore was standing behind the podium on a stage that had been raised a metre off the ground. He looked comfortable there—he had the same easy, likeable way of a public speaker as James, and Francis was struck by the genius choice James had made. Not only was Gore a good choice for a moderator, but his central role also took him out of the shadow of the scandal and reaffirmed the cluster's commitment to him. James was definitely better with the optics and politics than Francis.

The man of the hour was standing at an inconspicuous stage left, cutting—Francis had to admit—a handsome figure in his navy-blue suit. Even with his long hair—rather unconventional for a professor—James looked like the very picture of a successful young professor, smiling to himself as Gore went about his introduction. He didn't steal the spotlight, but his presence on the stage was also not easily overlooked. His smile only broadened when Gore introduced him, and he stepped up to the podium to shake Gore's hand and thank him before welcoming the guests.

“We should sit down,” Jopson whispered, and Francis realised he was still standing in the entryway as though he'd been spellbound. He shook his head, murmured a distracted _yes_ , and followed Jopson, though he didn't quite manage to tear his eyes away from James.

The speech was as close to a masterpiece as any of its like would ever be. Francis had meant to watch the room—here, after all, were the people that would make or break their careers—but found his eyes wandering back to James time and time again. He looked at ease on stage in a way Francis never would, but instead of being filled with envy over the fact, Francis found himself filled with a deep gratitude—that he had James to stand up there, that he didn't have to do it himself, that James had these talents that Francis lacked—and an even deeper admiration. Francis waited for him as he stepped off the stage.

When James caught sight of him, his smile tightened. A hint of apprehension crept into his eyes. It hurt Francis, but he knew he probably deserved it.

“That was an outstanding speech,” Francis said honestly, and Jopson, next to him, agreed: “Wonderfully done.”

The nervous edge to James’s smile eased. He raised a hand to run through his hair, the way he did when he was pleased with something but didn't want to appear overly concerned, then undoubtedly remembered the product he had put in and stopped himself. “Thank you.”

Francis patted his arm vigorously, then withdrew his hand when he realised that so much familiarity might not be welcome. He cleared his throat. “Should we have a look at the buffet?”

“Let’s,” James said, and then a number of things happened in quick succession: James smiled at Francis—a genuine, warm smile, the first one of that kind had received from James in months—which flustered Francis. He smiled back, then cast his gaze at his shoes to conceal what he had no doubt was a blush on his cheeks. As he did, he heard someone over the speakers clear his throat, just as Jopson said, “Was Dr Stanley supposed to give a speech tonight?” and James whirled around, back to the stage.

“What on—"

“If I might have your attention for a few more minutes, ladies and gentlemen?” Stanley stood behind the podium with a polite smile, waiting for the room to fall quiet.

“He wasn’t,” James said.

“After we’ve heaped so much praise on ourselves for a year and a half of accomplishing nothing, I think it’s time for some frank words.”

Francis and James looked at each other in the same moment, and Francis saw on his face something he had never seen there before: insecurity. James looked like a boy realising he had misjudged a jump on the playground just before hitting the ground. In that split second, Francis ran through a couple of scenarios in his mind. He might not be good on a stage, but he was good in a crisis.

_“We've heard a lot about successes. The truth is, with a year and a half and nine million euros gone, there is not a single success to show for it.”_

Francis would have stormed up the stage himself if he knew he wouldn’t cause more of a scene, after all that had been said and gossiped about him in the last months. Turning to James, he was about to instruct him to get Stanley off the stage while Francis called security or the police, when he noticed that all colour had drained from James’s face. His breaths were coming hard and shallow, and he was staring vacantly ahead.

Change of plan, then.

“Jopson. Can you get Stanley off the stage?”

“Me, Professor?” Jopson turned nearly as white as James. “I don’t know if that’s—"

“I’ll do it.”

Francis and James both turned to the new voice that had materialized to Francis’s right. There stood a tall, silver-haired man in a black suit, his face vaguely familiar to Francis. He looked like a younger Marty Stuart. When he saw James, his face dropped.

“Are you alright, Fitz?”

_“From the beginning, the leadership of this project was amateurish.”_

Were the situation any different, Francis would have asked about the nickname. But Stanley on stage was still talking. More and more people were turning their eyes. Francis knew they were running out of time.

“I’ll take care of him,” Francis promised. With a grateful nod, the silver-haired man was off.  
“Jopson, find Gore. Tell him what happened. Tell him I've taken Dr Fitzjames—" He hesitated. James grasped his arm. “My office. Upstairs.”

Francis nodded. As Jopson hurried off, Francis fitted his hand over the death grip James had on his arm and gently started leading him away. Over the speakers, he heard the cheerful voice of their rescuer say something reassuring that didn’t quite register. And then they were out: out of the hall, away from the people and their prying eyes. James pulled him towards the elevator.

“Thank you,” he said as the doors closed behind them and he punched in his floor number with shaking hands. Their entangled hands separated slowly, as James was loath to part with the contact and Francis didn't want to leave him adrift.

“It was like the hospital,” James said, and Francis understood immediately.

“Are you—"

The elevator jerked upwards, then shuddered to a halt. Francis reached for the handhold to steady himself instinctually, but by then it was over, and the elevator wasn’t moving anymore.

Francis caught James's eye. He had gone very still again.

“Great.” James laughed shakily, but there was no humour in his voice. Francis moved around him carefully.

“I’ll get the emergency service.”

There was a beeping dial-up sound that reminded Francis of his early 2000s modem when he pushed the button. Then the static crackled, and a monotonous voice answered: “Please give us your current location.”

James was quiet as Francis navigated their rescue. In the small space of the elevator, there was just enough room to stand so their shoulders didn’t brush, but Francis could feel the thrum of nervous energy in James’s body and wondered if the man was claustrophobic.

James leaned his forehead against the metal wall of the elevator. Both his hands were balled into fists. Francis found himself torn between the impulse to comfort James and to leave him space.

“They said it might take a moment,” he said eventually, as if James hadn’t heard. James nodded silently, then drew a shuddering breath—and Francis realised he was crying. Fucking hell.

Francis wanted to reach out but wasn’t sure if it would be welcome. After everything they’d been through, James would be right to keep his distance. Then again, he made a pitiful sight. Francis decided to throw propriety to the wind. “James,” he said gently.

“It’s fine,” James said, which was either a lie or a very successful self-deception.

Either way, Francis wasn’t inclined to believe him. “Tell me how I can help you. What do you need?”

James turned his face away from Francis, drawing another breath through his stuffed nose. “It’s nothing, just…”

A panic attack.

“I know,” Francis said. He took one step towards James, and carefully placed a hand on his shoulder. The wool of James’s suit was soft. It shocked Francis, how warm it felt, and how tense James seemed underneath it all. He could feel him shaking with the sobs he was suppressing. Carefully—almost imperceptible at first, then with purpose—Francis let his thumb move in small circles over James’s shoulder blade.

When James turned towards him, Francis was utterly unprepared. James all but threw himself into Francis’s arms and buried his head in Francis’s shoulder. Belatedly, Francis brought his arms up to hold him in what he hoped was a reassuring manner, though he felt awkward and stiff.

He let James cry. There was no need to ask what had brought it on. It could have been any of the little or the big things—Francis knew from experience. The damn things always multiplied until the printer running out of paper or accidentally knocking over his coffee cup would have him screaming at whatever unfortunate soul happened to be nearby. It had taken him a long time to recognise the signs, and he’d been well on his way to a relapse before Thomas and Jopson and Ross had intervened. The least he could do was not leave James alone with his panic now.

Eventually, James’s breaths slowed. One of Francis’s hands had wound up at the nape of his neck, feeling the tickling beginnings of James’s curls. Francis removed that hand and slowly guided James to the ground, where they both sat, James between Francis’s knees, with his back leaning against Francis’s chest. James let his head loll back onto Francis’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” James said. His voice sounded hoarse, and he swallowed heavily. Francis hummed quietly. He didn’t want to say anything—afraid anything he could think to say would disturb this moment beyond retrieval. James was near boneless in his arms, and so incredibly warm. Francis wasn’t sure when the last time he’d ever held anyone like that had been.

If he were a little braver, he’d say something. There was something between them now that went beyond collegiality, beyond friendship even. But Francis had never been good at speaking about these things first. He let them live in the unspoken spaces until they fizzled out or turned bitter, and then he would blame himself but change nothing about his behaviour.

James was—James was infuriating. He was young and successful: two things Francis felt he’d never been. But Francis didn’t hate James for that. No, the depth of his irritation with James had come from the fact that even in their deepest disagreements, he’d wanted James to _like_ him. That wasn’t a good place to be for him, especially not if he needed to keep working with James. He couldn’t keep thinking about the man’s aftershave and his soft hair and well-defined arms if he wanted to maintain an air of professionalism.

A metallic screeching pulled Francis from his miserable contemplation. The elevator shook. They both scrambled to their feet, just in time for the elevator to lurch down and almost knock them to the floor again. Then, to Francis’s relief—and James’s, going by the way he closed his eyes and tipped his head back in a way that almost resembled a silent prayer—the elevator began moving upwards.

They were welcomed by a taciturn employee of the elevator company who briefly inquired if they were alright and bustled off when he’d ensured they hadn’t sustained any injuries they would sue the company over. Then Francis and James, once more with a respectable distance between them, were alone on the third floor of _Erebus_.

“My office is just down that way,” James said. He pointed, then started leading the way, casting a glance over his shoulder to make sure Francis was following. Francis did.

James’s office felt much more occupied than Francis’s. He had a board up on one wall that listed tasks for his thesis. His desk was likewise covered in books, notes, and stacks of exams or term papers. One wall boasted a well-filled bookshelf with books so pristine they couldn’t have ever been read—probably all of them with personal handwritten dedications; James was the kind of man who inspired these sorts of presents. The other wall contained sets of binders that most likely held the departmental paperwork that James had taken on himself after Franklin’s stroke. There was one ergonomic office chair in front of James’s desk, and a rickety chair by one wall.

James turned to Francis. His eyes were red. It hurt Francis to think that James probably didn’t want to see him cry. He knew he’d lost the trust that had led James to call him in the middle of the night after Franklin’s stroke—but, then again, it was Francis here with him right now.

“Is there anything else you need?”

James shook his head, lips pressed together tightly. “No, I—thank you.”

“Of course.” He should leave. What he did do was shift his weight from one foot to another, as though preparing the motion of turning around and leaving. He couldn’t leave James; not like this. “Are you sure—"

Something sparked in James’s eyes. Francis watched as James steeled his face into a mask of determination and stepped forward. Francis blinked, and then James seized him by the arms, leaned forward, and kissed him.

Francis wasn’t proud to admit it, but he made a panicked noise. James’s grip on his arms was tight, keeping Francis locked in place—not that he would have wanted to go anywhere. Or maybe he did. He couldn’t remember anymore. Oh God, he could smell James’s aftershave again. It made him feel things that a man of his age should not be feeling, definitely not towards a co-worker. Still, one of his hands—almost of its own accord—moved up to cup James’s face. He could feel the hint of stubble on James’s cheek, and watched James’s eyes flutter closed at the touch.

He moved first and thought about it afterwards—it was a small thing to step forward, James’s body moving with him as though they were dancing, until the back of James’s legs hit the edge of his desk. James grunted when Francis leaned forward a little bit more and pressed him into the desk. He went willingly.

Had they been heading towards this, and Francis just hadn’t seen it? It was cliché— _he hates his colleague but actually wants to fuck him_ —except that wasn’t it, not quite. But he couldn’t puzzle it out, not with James’s hands, suddenly rather bold, seizing his arse and hauling him in. Francis’s mind was a mess of half-remembered thoughts as to why he shouldn’t be wanting this, and the panicked realisation that he was hard, hard enough that James could see his erection in the damned suit pants.

James’s long-fingered hands were kneading Francis’s arse. It made Francis feel weak in the knees. He retaliated by shoving his tongue in James’s mouth, and James groaned at that. He sounded like he wanted nothing better than for Francis to use him, and wasn’t that a concept. PD Dr _fucking_ Fitzjames and his perfect hair and his stupid aftershave and the way he smiled at Francis over lunch on one of the rare occasions they weren’t at odds with each other. Francis carded his fingers through James’s hair, happy to know that it would come away a little less put together, a little less perfect. Make James human for once.

James, backside still pressed against the table, pushed his hips up against Francis’s when Francis pulled at his hair. Francis’s mind went blissfully blank. Why hadn’t they done this sooner? He could have had James underneath him like this all this time, no vanity, no pretence. Just James and the noises he made when Francis rolled his hips slowly to see if it would feel as good the second time.

James relinquished one of the hands on Francis’s arse to tangle it with the hand Francis kept at James’s side. It was an oddly soft gesture. Francis paused, long enough to remember one thing. This wasn’t a good idea.

Yet Francis couldn’t bring himself to draw back. Not with how soft and pliant James’s lips were and, Christ, why had he never realised that James wanted this? Had he been blind? Or was Francis merely convenient, the closest warm body that James could reach for?

That thought stung, enough to bring Francis back to reality. He pulled back, which meant he had to watch James tilt his chin forward in his search for more of Francis’s mouth on his, then blink as though slowly coming to his senses.

Francis busied himself with the cuffs of his suit. James clambered off the desk and shuffled through papers that had been thrown into disarray as though there was actually something he needed to look for at this hour. Francis wanted to ask if he was alright, but he was afraid James would misinterpret the question. By God, they really had just done that. Francis couldn’t even blame alcohol since he hadn’t gotten to the thrice-damned free buffet.

“I should let Dundy know I’m alright,” James said to his pile of papers.

Francis knew a dismissal when he saw one. From where he stood, Francis could see the outline of James’s erection in his pants. He should go now while there was even a modicum of plausible deniability left. Still, Francis took one step, two steps closer to James, then stopped just shy of touching him. His voice, when he spoke, came out rougher than he intended. He sounded—best not to think about it.

“Call me if there’s anything you need.”

As if there was anything James would need from him. Francis made his retreat before more dangerously sentimental nonsense could leave his mouth.

The top floor of Erebus was dark. Francis took the stairs, all three flights of them, pausing in the second-story bathroom to splash cold water on his face until the redness had gone out of his cheeks.

Back at the conference, a semblance of normalcy had returned. Francis saw Jopson at the buffet, chatting with a visiting scholar whose paper Francis had reviewed a couple of months before. Their silver-haired rescuer was nowhere to be seen, which Francis took to mean Dr Stanley was still being questioned. The whole thing frightened Francis suddenly—the lights and the noise and the scrutiny of his peers. He fled.


	9. Chapter 9

**October 2017**

Francis was sitting at their usual spot in the cafeteria, wearing a dark woollen sweater with elbow patches and looking to all the world like nothing was amiss. James didn’t know whether to take that as a good sign or a bad sign.

The cafeteria was still in the grip of the first two weeks of the winter semester, filled to the brim with students who didn’t know how to cook for themselves. It would empty by the end of November, James knew from experience, when the trek to campus became less and less alluring as the weather worsened. But for now, the bustle gave James some anonymity as he watched Francis from his spot in the lunch queue. He looked calm. Collected. Not like someone who had been snogged by his colleague after a disaster of a conference opener.

James wasn’t proud of it, but he’d let Dundy take over the rest of the weekend. Even thinking about going back made him nauseous. He’d spent most of the weekend in his apartment, taking the occasional walk when nerves threatened to overwhelm him, and he was sure the email from HR about his unprofessional behaviour would come at any moment.

It hadn’t.

And now Francis was here, with his plate of what looked like the day’s menu of vegetarian spaghetti Bolognese, waiting for James as though nothing was amiss. Like James didn’t know exactly what the outline of his cock felt like when it was pressed between James’s spread legs, like he—

In short, James couldn’t make sense of it.

He dropped his card twice in the attempt to pay. The lady behind the register raised an eyebrow, and James gave her his best attempt at a winning smile, but even he could tell he was distracted. Distracted. Hah. He was in hell, and this university cafeteria was purgatory. It could have been fine, he reasoned, had he only been desperate. While desperation had played its part, the underlying truth was that he liked Francis. More than a little. Probably closer to a lot. Only he hadn’t been able to admit it to himself until he’d quite literally had the man in his lap.

Francis greeted him amicably when James sat down at their table. James found himself watching Francis’s face closely for any sign of a change, and finding none—if anything, that was the biggest surprise.

“The feedback is overall positive,” Francis said, pointing at what looked like an honest-to-god printout of Dr Little’s graphs. James desperately wanted to know why Francis didn’t just carry a tablet like a normal person. The thought irked him so much that he barely registered the graphs.

“That’s good,” he said distractedly. His gaze kept wandering to Francis’s lips. His mind kept wandering back to the way Francis smelled. Oh, he was so terribly fucked.

 _Did I dream this._ James hoped telepathy might work. Unfortunately, Francis failed to pick up on his thoughts. Francis just pulled up the free text field responses and began going through them. Apparently, the conference had been ‘intellectually stimulating’, ‘a great networking opportunity’, and ‘bagel’.

“Edward really couldn’t figure that one out,” Francis said, puzzled. “I don’t think they meant to write _bagel_.”

James managed a weak laugh. _Would you kiss me again_ , he wanted to ask. _Would you kiss me again and mean it?_

“Seems we’ve slipped the noose,” he said. Francis raised his hand, then paused with it hovering halfway between them. Its retreat was more conspicuous than natural. “You did an excellent job, James,” he said quietly. “What Steven did was not your fault, and everybody understands that.” He laughed dryly. “I probably shoulder even more blame in this than you. After all, if I had pulled myself together sooner—"

They fell quiet. James found himself only a little surprised that he didn’t want to blame Francis anymore. They had both spent a long time being uncharitable towards each other.

“I never faulted you for not being John,” James said. Francis looked up, with one eyebrow raised. “I never said you did.”

 _No, but you thought it._ When had James started sparing Francis’s feelings?

“Suppose I just wanted to mention it,” James murmured.

* * *

**November 2017**

Francis was in his office. _James’s_ office. This was a new development. James felt he was slowly going mad over this new Francis he had found himself presented with, who was amicable and courteous towards James, except for the fact that he neglected to mention what had passed between them the night of the conference. He looked like a different man—less tired, his stance less slumped, and rumour had it he’d actually smiled at his students last week.

Maybe James had died, and this was his heaven. It was beginning to look like a more and more plausible explanation.

They had been going over the finances for the cluster, seeing what could be allocated to partially fund promising projects outside of their narrowly defined circle. James had to stifle a yawn behind his hand every couple of minutes. He hadn’t slept very well the last weeks, and the thought of Francis’s hand in his hair and Francis’s tongue in his mouth was only partly responsible.

He hadn’t been able to replace the interviewees. He’d asked around—and so had Dundy and John—but on such short notice, no one could volunteer an hour of their time every week over the course of three months. James was left with too much data to throw it all out and start over, and not enough to begin something new. It haunted him. Last night, he’d dreamt that a long line of professors, advisors, and co-authors had assembled in his lecture hall to mock his academic achievements.

_Not a full professor._

_A fraud. Can’t even finish his habilitation thesis._

_How did he get here?_

_Is his work even good?_

_A fraud._

_How did he get here?_

“When’s the last time you slept?”

The question pulled James out of his stupor. He realised his eyes had slipped shut, and he’d started drifting off again. The long line of his academic role models had been waiting for him, apparently. But when he opened his eyes, there was only Francis, standing next to James’s chair, well inside his personal space. James decided it was best not to draw attention to it, lest Francis decide it was too much and draw back.

“I slept last night,” James said. It wasn’t even a lie, unlike the last time Dundy had asked him that question.

Francis sighed audibly, making it clear he wanted James to hear his disappointment.

“When’s the last time you slept _well_ , then?”

There it was again. The _concern_. James couldn’t deal with it. It was driving him up the fucking walls—but he was so, so tired. “Probably the last time you did.”

Francis bumped against his chair, and James started rotating slowly. He watched his cluttered desk and dirty computer screen pass him by in a slow-pan, then his window with the two plants, and then the pin-board with tasks he would never finish.

“Come with me, then.”

James wouldn’t even argue. They made a short walk from _Erebus_ to _Terror_. Outside the two buildings, a few brave students were spiting the rain in the name of a cigarette and coffee while talking about their seminar on New Marxist Thought, perhaps. Inside _Terror_ , the hallways were quiet.

“Where are we going?”

Francis didn’t respond beyond an enigmatic smile. James would have suspected malicious motives if they hadn’t moved so far beyond any professional rivalry by now.

They went down into the basement.

“They originally planned to give the department more computing power,” Francis explained as he unlocked the door to the server room. “But the funding ran out, and they decided what we had was good enough.”

He didn’t flip on the light switch but took hold of James’s arm to guide him under the dim glow of the computer status lights and emergency exit sign. The point of contact centred James. In the dim like he felt strange, like they had entered a kind of parallel dimension, the sort that existed in children’s books, the kind of everyday mysticism that was beyond his academic and rational mind.

Francis brought them to another door. “I think it was Edward’s idea, originally. But every now and then you’re just in need of a good place to nap on campus.”

The room behind the door was cramped and dark. The air was cool but stuffy, and there was no window. Francis ushered James inside, then closed the door behind them so the humming of the servers was muffled. Francis switched on the flashlight on his phone. It illuminated a mattress.

“Alright, time to sleep.”

James didn’t even find it strange anymore. If this was him losing it, then at least he’d get a couple hours’ rest out of it. He knelt down to feel the mattress and found it pleasantly soft under his hands. Francis drew a blanket from a cupboard and tossed it to James.

James took off his shoes and went to lie down. Francis knelt down next to him and helped cover him with the blanket. James felt his heart tighten strangely at the gesture, and he found himself longing for more than a brief glimpse at Francis’s face in the light of his phone flashlight.

There was a moment when Francis paused with his hand on the blanket covering James’s arm.

“Stay,” James said.

In the dark, it was hard to gauge Francis’s reaction. James could only feel the hand linger on his arm a moment longer, then noted the dipping of the mattress as Francis sat down to take off his shoes and lie down next to James.

James exhaled deeply.

The space was large enough to afford them both enough room to lie comfortably, but still small enough that every time Francis shifted, James felt an accidental brush here or there—his back, his arms, his legs. It comforted him, like small human reminders that someone was there in the darkness, that he was not alone.

He fell into that strange place where he would have denied having been asleep after waking if it weren’t for the fact that he felt more rested. The muffled background humming of the servers, Francis’s quiet breathing, and the blanketing darkness bled into a timeless lull surrounding him, and slowly all the knots in his chest began to loosen, until—with one deep breath—he fell at last into the complete darkness of sleep after utter exhaustion. And then there was nothing for a long, long while.

* * *

He woke feeling pleasantly warm, all his limbs loose and his mind cotton-candy soft from resting. There was an arm slung around his midsection, and somehow that wasn’t strange, not even when he woke enough to realise it was Francis. Instead of intrusive or wrong, it felt comforting, like everything Francis had done for him this afternoon.

James feared his waking might disturb Francis—he wasn’t afraid of embarrassment, but he did fear losing the comfort of their embrace, and so he was careful to keep his breathing level and not shift too much. Francis’s breaths came from a deep, rumbling place within his chest, and James could _feel_ them, as much as he could feel his own. He’d never thought something as simple as feeling someone else breathe could be so comforting.

Before he knew it, he had fallen back asleep.

* * *

“You curl up like a cat when you sleep.”

The voice that pulled James from his unconsciousness was still Francis’s, but it was softer, smoothed around the edges. James stretched out his legs, felt something in his back pop and slot back into place.

“I do?”

Francis’s arm was still around him. James stilled, so as not to call attention to it.

“You do.” Francis chuckled. “It would amaze the mathematicians, how so much man can fit into such a small circle.”

James snorted. He could hear the grin in Francis’s voice. It was still dark, and perhaps that was why it was so easy to continue lying in Francis’s arms as though that wasn’t completely outside the realm of normal behaviour. Then again, James didn’t even know what normal was anymore. The last months had shifted his baseline.

Francis stretched, and his arm slipped off James in a way that felt natural, less like a retreat and more like a continuation. James mourned the loss, even knowing that they would have to get up. He had no idea what time it was.

“Do you feel better?” Francis asked, and James found himself mourning the disappearing softness in his voice also. He needed to get a grip on himself.

Francis switched on the flashlight on his phone again.

“I do,” he said, turning to give Francis one of his more genuine smiles. Francis returned it, then gripped James’ forearm. James felt a strange tugging sensation in his stomach.

“I’m glad.”

* * *

**December 2017**

They kept to the back of the venue, near the bar, where the people were fewer, but they still had a line of sight to the stage. Francis and Thomas had both outgrown their love for the circle pit, and besides, they didn’t need to block the view for the fifteen-year-olds still awaiting their growth spurts who were gathering before the stage.

Francis had loved going to shows since the first time an older cousin had taken him to see _A Sky of Falling Meteorites_ , a local death metal band whose singer had later gone on to study business economics, if their Wikipedia article could be believed. There was something about the feeling of anonymity in the crowd, being irrelevant as an individual but everything in the collective, that had freed Francis. He still felt it every time the lights dimmed.

Thomas had ditched his rumpled blazer for the night and dug his least ratty black t-shirt and most ripped black jeans out of his closet. Francis had considered wearing his black cowl, but the prospect of running into one of his students while looking like a reject renaissance fair actor had brought him to opt for much the same outfit as Thomas, except his jeans didn’t have holes in them, and he’d actually shined his Doc Martens.

They chatted about nothing of importance while waiting for the opening act, nursing their beers because the venue had hiked up the prices again in January. Thomas told Francis the riveting journey of his grant application while Francis complained about the impending move from _Terror_ to _Erebus_ and the interruption that would cause to his research.

The opening act was a local band. Francis didn’t catch the name because someone must have rushed the sound check—the lead singer’s mic was too quiet compared to the electric guitar, but the girl on base, with a puffy afro and fingers that moved too fast on the fretboard, carried the show anyway. Thomas got them another round of beers before the main act, and then they got to watch as a tall, bald man in a leather coat screamed his heart out to the sound of an electric guitar, drumkit, and—surprisingly—a hurdy-gurdy. He made it work. Around them, the crowd pushed and receded like waves on a beach. Francis felt at home.

During the intermission, their conversation turned to different topics.

“How is Fitzjames doing, anyway?”

Francis had been in the process of outlining the steps he was going to implement for the cluster, the long and complicated process that would see at least some of their reputation salvaged before the end of the project in the spring of 2019, and what James had had to say on the issue. Thomas’s question caught Francis unawares.

“He’s fine, considering the circumstances.”

Francis tried not to eye Francis too suspiciously. He didn’t want word of James’s near breakdown to reach the wrong ears—not that Thomas would use that information against James. But others might.

Thomas just shrugged. “You just haven’t complained about him in a month is all. I was starting to wonder if you’d killed him and somehow managed to dispose of the body without me.”

Francis thought of James’s pale face and how warm he’d felt in Francis’s arms, how utterly boneless. He hated himself for being unable to forget it; that he found himself drifting closer to James during their lunches to feel an echo of James’s warmth or to catch his smell again. That hadn’t been what he’d had in mind when he’d brought James down to the server room.

 _Except_ , his treacherous brain supplied, _why else would you bring him down there?_

In his weaker moments, his mind wandered back to the night of the conference. He’d promised himself to forget the episode as quickly as he could—a vow that only held until the next time he wanked off, and the memory of James moaning when Francis pressed him down against his desk had him spilling over his own hand with a shocked gasp.

“I may have been wrong about him,” Francis said curtly.

Thomas’s grin was one of absolute, unbridled delight. “Francis Crozier, admitting that he was wrong?”

“Oh, shut it. I can be wrong about things. Otherwise I’d be a lousy researcher.”

Despite Francis’s best efforts—or likely because of them—he felt himself blush. His only hope was the venue dimming the lights before Thomas could spot the treacherous colour in Francis’s cheeks and pounce on the sign of weakness. But no higher power took mercy on Francis.

“You’re killing me here.” Thomas shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve seen you that defensive since you locked yourself out of your office.”

Francis glared at him. “James is proving to be a good colleague.”

“Oh, he’s _James_ now, is he?”

Francis took a long swig of his beer, then found to his dismay that he’d drunk the last of it. Damn Thomas to hell. The man needed to stop digging where Francis didn’t want things unearthed. Not that there was anything between him and James, at least nothing that wouldn’t dissipate once Francis was a little less stressed. People sought comfort in a lot of places when they were under this much pressure. That was all there was to it.

“Thomas, please…”

Thomas shrugged, clearly still bemused. “If you say so.”

Francis felt he’d slipped the noose for now. Thomas turned back to the stage, but he leaned over to Francis while keeping his eyes on the stage for one last remark.

“I think it’d do you good, my friend.”

Francis didn’t dignify that with a response. He watched the microphone stand like it would provide him with answers, studiously ignoring the burning in his cheeks, until the lights dimmed and the band came back out.

They sung along to the second set. Thomas gave some kids a demonstration of his headbanging. Francis stomped his boots in time with the music and enjoyed the feeling of fullness in his chest that only came from screaming his lungs out, until his worries bled away and he was just one voice of many in the crowd.


	10. Chapter 10

**April 2018**

“I’m going to have to step down, Francis.”

James had rehearsed it in front of the mirror often enough now to be able to keep a straight face all the way through, and he was reasonably sure he would be able to keep from crying. He only had to get through this one thing, this one conversation, and then he’d be able to sleep again at night.

“I’m going to have to step down, Francis.”

Fagin meowed at him. He often talked to himself, and Fagin had decided long ago the best way to help James keep sane was to talk back. It didn’t help James’s sanity in the least that he found himself having conversations with his cat that didn’t seem entirely one-sided.

The man in the mirror looked years older than he had just two years ago. Two years ago, his career had seemed relatively straightforward. Now, most of the certainties of his life—John, his upcoming promotion, his profession—were no longer all that certain. His hair had gotten longer, too, and he’d taken to wearing it in a bun like he had during the last years of his masters. Unlike back then, it was beginning to streak grey.

He didn’t look happy.

Ultimately, that had been the deciding factor. When he woke up in the morning, he no longer saw a happy man: He saw a tired man who dragged himself from day to day without much of an idea what he was doing it for.

He sighed, then scooped up Fagin and turned away from the mirror and the man in it that he didn’t like. There was no shame, he told himself, in leaving academia, even at his age. He would find something else: consulting work or even a job with the government. He was highly qualified, and with the exception of the cluster and his professorial qualification, he’d completed every project he ever set eyes on not only in time and with good results, but also with style.

He set Fagin down in the kitchen and got his food before he prepared his own breakfast. Over the rim of his iPad, he watched Fagin munch happily and found that more entertaining to watch during his breakfast that the paper he’d pulled up.

He really just wanted to sleep.

The semester was weeks away from starting, and campus was empty as he headed to his office in _Erebus_. He’d asked Francis for a meeting at ten and had already told Dundy he’d be going home after lunch. As he watched the clock tick towards ten, he found himself cataloguing the mundane actions of his day, wondering if he would miss them and how much.

_They’re not worth your sanity._

He knew this, and still he felt wistful at the thought of giving up his office, his students, his research. He was good at it. He just didn’t want to kill himself over it.

Francis was five minutes early—he often was—and tried to mask the fact by loitering around in front of James’s office.

“Come in, for God’s sake,” James called when he caught sight of Francis’s familiar jacket.

Francis smiled sheepishly as he ducked into James’s office. “Wasn’t sure how busy you were.”

James couldn’t help the bitter laugh that escaped him. He made sure the door was closed behind Francis.

“I’m going to step down,” he said, once he was seated back at his desk across from Francis. He said it firmly, but not accusingly, and most importantly—without crying. There. He’d done it.

“James…”

The expression on Francis’s face was one of pure shock. He’d straightened up on the rickety chair, holding his back ramrod straight. His pale face had gone even paler. He kept opening and closing his mouth as though making to speak and finding that simple act unbearably hard.

“I’m sorry if—oh, God.” He buried his face in his hands. “I’m so sorry, James. I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

It all came to James in a rush, then—the way Francis had been acting, like he was treading on eggshells around James; the way they didn’t speak about the night of the conference last October. James had thought Francis was letting him down easy—by not speaking about it, they could consign that night as an aberration, a moment of desperation, something maybe wanted in the moment but not to be repeated. But Francis had taken him down to the server room, and hadn’t his glances lingered sometimes over their shared lunch breaks? Had James been so caught up in his personal crisis that he’d completely missed the signs?

“No, Francis, that’s not—" He was making a mess of it. “Francis, this has nothing to do with you. I just can’t go on like this anymore.” He realised he would have to go into specifics at some point. “The sleepless nights. The stress. The unclear expectations. The moving goalposts.” He sighed. “My interview partners cancelled further cooperation with me last October, just before the conference. I was hoping I could salvage something, but—"

James would have laughed at the ridiculousness of it all, except he felt he’d lost all capacity for humour. He’d slipped clean from one personal crisis into the next.

“Oh,” Francis said quietly, and it stopped James’s rambling dead in its tracks. “I didn’t know that, James.”

James tried for a smile that missed its mark. “We are all perpetuating the system, aren’t we? Laud your success, keep quiet about your troubles unless you kill them or they kill you.”

Francis shook his head vehemently. “No. That is not how I want to do things.”

James leaned forward and put a hand on his arm. It felt right. James felt a twinge of regret at the thought that he’d missed Francis’s overtures, but it was no matter. “I’m not blaming you, Francis. I hate to leave you alone with this project, because God knows it’s a mess of a thing, but I can’t—"

His throat closed up unexpectedly around the words. He swallowed, hoping to preserve at least some of his dignity. He’d said he wouldn’t cry.

Francis was still shaking his head. How different he looked from the small-minded, miserable man James had first laid eyes on in a university courtyard two years ago—he had grown into his role, and James knew that even though the next year would be hard, Francis would come out of it a success story. Everybody loved an underdog, and Francis had the qualifications to back it up. He had friends who loved him, postdocs who worshipped the ground he walked on and who would go to hell with him if he asked them. James had—well, he still had Dundy and his cat. That was something.

“I respect your decision, of course, James. But I want you to know that anything I can offer, I will give you. I can help you supplement the data you lost on the interviews, probably—Twitter data, a survey, it’s not really that hard to generate some useful data these days. But I understand if you’d prefer not to.”

There was something odd about the way he said it, something stiff and formal. James let it lie.

One thing he knew for sure, and that was enough. “I need to get out.”

Francis’s shoulders slumped, but he nodded. “I’ll get the paperwork to you tomorrow.”

James—hand still on Francis’s arm—squeezed it, once. “Thank you.”

* * *

Francis felt like he was about to vomit out his heart riding his bicycle as hard as he could behind the city bus. As long as his heart was busy pumping blood through his body, it might stay where it was supposed to be, and Francis could go on riding his bicycle until he reached home or fell apart, whichever happened first.

He’d ruined it.

It was only fifteen minutes to make his way from the university to his apartment. Not enough time to work through all the nervous energy that had accumulated in his system.

He thought about calling Thomas. Then he thought about all the confessions that calling Thomas would entail. He thought about calling Ross, but that would have been even more awkward.

Why couldn’t he have—Francis began to catalogue his regrets one by one and then, shocked by their quantity, stopped. If only he had never accepted the posting. If only he had realised sooner that what he felt for James was not just a jealous fascination with his success and his hair and the smell of his aftershave. If only he hadn’t kissed James back the night of the conference. If only he were a better man.

He would call Little tomorrow. Offer him the post and the promotion—Little deserved it, and he would do well. They could stomach one fewer class next semester. That wouldn’t fix the empty spot at Francis’s side where James should be, though.

* * *

**June 2018**

The lack of air conditioning never seemed like a problem in the winter months, draughty as the building was, but it always it hit James full force the first week of June. The heat collected under the high ceilings, and even though _Erebus’s_ insulation was better than that of a lot of the old buildings, it became stifling by the second week of June without someone airing the place out at night. By week three, people started buying fans online until the university administration reminded everyone that all electronics had to be vetted by the university janitor. Ever since the fire in the administrative building, they were a little jumpy.

There was an email in James’s inbox he was currently ignoring. With how hard he was trying not to think about it, it wasn’t going too well.

“Have you decided what you’ll teach yet?”

He’d asked Dundy over lunch today and felt the first pang at that—the idea that teaching would continue, that life and work in the department would continue, and he would no longer be a part of it. The department he was meant to lead. He wondered if that was how John had felt—that things were unfinished, leaving the unsatisfying bitter taste of could-have-beens.

“I was thinking about working on that decision neuroscience thing for the master’s students again,” Dundy said, then shrugged. James decided to change the topic.

It wasn’t Dundy’s fault that the closer the moment of James’s decision came, the less he felt like making it. He’d almost asked Dundy why he wouldn’t continue the seminar that they had developed together, but maybe Dundy simply thought it was time to move on as well. James certainly was.

He’d half responded to the email about winter semester lecture planning before remembering he wasn’t going to be here. He always had ideas for seminars, new projects he wanted to pitch. This should have been his time. Now he was setting out to compose a very different email.

~~I regret to inform you that I will not be teaching any seminars in the upcoming semester~~

~~My considerable workload has led me to~~

~~I’m a coward and I quit~~

There was a knock at his door.

James hastily erased the last line before he could accidentally hit send. There was a student in his doorway, looking sheepishly at James.

“I hope I’m not interrupting you, Dr Fitzjames. The door was open.”

“No, no, come in.” James pulled out the chair so that the student could sit down. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, wore a plain-coloured t-shirt, and had a neatly trimmed beard. James couldn’t place him.

“I hope you don’t mind. It’s not going to be long.” The student put down his messenger bag—leather, second-hand, because of course it was. “I just wanted to say thank you.”

James’s surprise must have shown on his face. “I was in your social psychology seminar. I’m an economics student, but I took one of your classes for my qualification credits. Peglar.”

The name rang a bell, but only faintly. James nodded carefully.

“Anyway, I was applying for PhD programmes all spring, and I just got the letter that I was accepted. They said they really appreciated my interdisciplinary background and my interest in psychology. But I wouldn’t have been half as good if you hadn’t given such a great seminar. So, thank you.”

“Oh, that’s—” For a moment, James didn’t know what to say. “Thank _you_. For letting me know.”

Peglar was beaming. “I thought you might be happy to hear you’re not just appreciated in your department.”

James swallowed. He was _not_ going to cry in front of an MSc student. He would only consider crying in front of a junior researcher.

“I’m sure you’ll do splendid,” James said. He sounded hoarse.

Peglar was still grinning when he got up. “Maybe I’ll see you at a conference next time!”

James waved him off weakly. He caught sight of Bridgens and _God_ , that was something else he’d have to take care off—help Bridgens find a new supervisor if he was still serious about going through with this dissertation. Bridgens nodded at James as he passed.

The email was still open in front of James. He started typing.


	11. Chapter 11

The building was five minutes away from the subway stop. It stood perpendicular to the street and curved slightly around an inner courtyard that—if it were maintained properly—could actually be quite beautiful. James had gotten Francis’s address from one all-too-cooperative Thomas Blanky. His cheery manner made James fear what Francis had told him.

James had wondered if he’d have to guess at which apartment was Francis’s—a quick calculation led him to upwards of thirty apartments in the building—but when he rounded the corner to the interior courtyard, Francis was there, bent over his bicycle. James stopped dead in his tracks.

He’d never seen Francis in anything but cardigans that made James wonder if he wanted to win the student prize for _most cliché professor look_ every year. Right now, however, Francis was in a pair of dark, oil-stained sweatpants and a black t-shirt that sat a little tighter than it might have ten years ago. He was humming to himself quietly—James noticed he had Bluetooth earbuds. Francis? Bluetooth? This simple tableau was more revelatory than James could deal with.

Francis had his tools spread out around himself and a bucket with relatively dirty water sitting a little off to the side. As James was watching, he righted himself and dropped a stained rag in the bucket. It landed with a splash.

James cleared his throat.

Francis whirled around, startled by the noise.

“Oh, James.” James didn’t know what to make of that. Was Francis not pleased to see him? Probably not. It was Saturday; he was listening to dad rock and working on his bicycle. And in came James.

“I’m sorry,” James said.

Francis frowned. “You came here to apologize? For what?” His frown deepened. “How do you even know where I live?”

“Blanky,” James said. Francis narrowed his eyes, and James felt a little guilty for throwing the man under the bus like that. “I asked him where you lived because—" Now that he was standing in front of Francis, he found it harder to articulate himself. It had all seemed so clear to him, the strings of his problems that had nearly brought him to his knees all tangled up with each other; if he could pick at the right one, they would all come lose. “I don’t want to leave you alone with all this, Francis.”

_And I’ve been thinking about kissing you ever since I realised you wanted it, too._

_And I’ve been missing our lunches together._

_And I’ve been missing you._

Francis reached for a towel he had tucked into the back of his pants and began drying off his hands methodically. They were rough hands, oil-stained and calloused. James wanted to take them between his own and see how they fit.

“James,” Francis said eventually, “you’re not leaving me alone. I understand. There’s no shame in drawing a line under a career that doesn’t let you advance.”

He sounded bitter, and James realised Francis was probably speaking from experience. Except Francis hadn’t quit, not yet, and it had paid off.

“I was—" James took a step towards Francis. He was close enough now to reach out. He could hear the faint music coming from one of Francis’s earbuds. Springsteen. He’d been right. “I hit a low point, it’s true. But we’re so close now. I want to be there for the end of the project at least.”

Something like hope flared in Francis’s eyes. He took out the earbuds, leaving his arms at his sides. Open. Waiting.

James had done it once before. It should be easy to bridge the distance again.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said. The data gathering.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’d like to try that. If you’d help me.”

He felt incredibly stupid. Here he stood, half crazy about kissing Francis, talking about data mining. He huffed in frustration at himself.

Francis was watching him closely. “Of course, James.”

“I don’t want to give it all up. I think that would drive me mad for the rest of my life,” James explained. And here he was—still on the wrong track. He should just come out and say it, but the thought alone left him red-faced and sweating. Perhaps he’d be brave enough to kiss Francis once he’d worked himself into a panic over it.

“Thank you, that’s very—I appreciate it.”

Francis shook his head, the movement miniscule, but James caught it nevertheless. He’d been watching Francis quite intently.

“I understand if you’re busy. So please, if it’s too much of a burden—"

“I already said I’d do it, didn’t I!” Francis exclaimed. James flinched, and before either of them could think about it, Francis reached out and caught James’s hand in his. James’s eyes snapped first to their hands—Francis’s hands felt dry and warm around his, exactly the way he’d pictured it—and then to Francis’s eyes.

He knew it would only take a little panic.

James kissed Francis with his eyes closed, as though closing them would protect him from the possibility of rejection. Francis’s hands around James’s own tightened, then let go, and Francis tangled one of them into James’s hair. A surprised gasp escaped James’s lips.

James felt like he’d been frozen in place by a lightning strike and turned to glass. For a moment, nothing moved—and then Francis did, dropping the rag he’d been holding and shoving James against the wall of the house. He opened his mouth, his tongue begging entry to James’s mouth, and James opened for him without a second thought. Francis tasted just like James remembered, and the weight of him pressing James’s body against the nearest available surface was still as electrifying as it had been the first time. He kissed Francis enthusiastically, his hands snaking around Francis to find their way into his back pockets and haul him closer against James.

He hadn’t planned on this. If anybody were to ask him, he’d swear he hadn’t planned on this.

Francis pulled back reluctantly, as though separating himself from James at this stage was a hardship he hadn’t considered before.

“I need to put this bike away,” he rasped, and when James’s eyes met his, a jolt of arousal went through James. He was almost entirely sure no one had ever looked at him like this—like they just wanted to eat him up whole and ask for seconds. James swallowed.

Francis ran a hand through his hair. “Just. A second. I need—" He spun around once, then located his keys in his back pocket. “Wait here,” he said, as though James could dream of going anywhere.

James tried to fix his hair in the glass door of the entryway to Francis’s building while Francis brought his bike down into the basement. He should have gone to see a hairdresser before. He shouldn’t have worn the paisley shirt. He should have—

“Alright.”

Francis appeared at the top of the stairs, the grin on his face wild until he caught sight of James and seemed suddenly self-conscious. All the breath James had collected immediately went out of him again. He smiled back at Francis and wondered if he looked as starstruck as he felt.

Francis took him upstairs to an apartment that was clean and modern, with wooden floors and high ceilings, the odd framed poster on the wall and a range of practical shoes strewn about the entryway. Francis kicked them aside self-consciously as he let James in. James couldn’t stop smiling, much less kissing Francis on the cheek, the neck, the ear when he stopped to unlock his door or toe off his shoes or turn around to swat at James with an indulgent grin on his face. “Don’t you have a minute’s patience?”

“I don’t,” James said.

In response, Francis kicked the door shut behind them and pressed James against it. James could get used to being manhandled by Francis—it was quickly becoming his favourite activity, with the way Francis ground his hips against James’s and licked into James’s mouth like he wanted to savour him.

“Are you really going to have your way with me in your entryway?” James panted when they separated.

“If I did, you’d deserve it,” Francis mumbled, “looking like this.”

He gave a sharp tug at James’s shirt, then ran his hands underneath it. James shivered at the feeling of Francis’s hands—strong hands, not that James had spent a long time looking at them—over his exposed skin.

“Is it because you don’t want me to know you sleep on a mattress on the floor?”

_That_ appealed to Francis’s contrary nature. With an unexpected—though not unwelcome—show of strength, he picked up James, who had just enough wherewithal to wrap his legs around Francis’s midsection, and began walking him down the narrow hallway. James enjoyed the way it made his cock press against Francis’s stomach, the heavy pressure of Francis’s hands on his arse. Moments later, he was dropped, rather unceremoniously, on a soft, flat surface.

“You’re heavy,” Francis complained, even as he was climbing over James, kissing his neck and his jaw and then his mouth.

“Didn’t ask you to pick me up,” James gasped as Francis found that spot just under his ear that had him writhing underneath Francis, trying to get that delicious friction back.

“Mh.” Francis continued to mouth at his jaw, seeming to find the activity most rewarding with how it made James pant and shiver. “You deserve to be picked up, though.”

James would have formulated an answer but found he couldn’t be bothered when Francis slowly began unbuttoning his shirt. His fingers flew to the buttons, a little too shaky to help things move along. When he looked up at Francis, he found his eyes dark with desire. James licked his lips.

Francis descended upon James’s mouth like a man who had run out of patience months ago. Somehow, in the process they managed to both lose their shirts and get James’s pants halfway down his legs before they fell back onto the mattress, Francis’s weight divine atop James. James rolled up his hips, jerking erratically, revelling in the sounds it drew from Francis. Shit, he had to get his hands on this man.

Seized by a sudden determination, James managed to roll them over so that Francis was lying on his back, the air going out of him with a quiet _oof_ as James fumbled with the button of his pants, zipped down his fly, and yanked off Francis’s pants as quickly as he could. He paused briefly to marvel at the beautiful outline of Francis’s cock in his boxer briefs, thick and hard. He ran a hand over it, and Francis grunted.

“Oh, James, that’s—"

James wasted no time in divesting Francis of the boxers as well. He wrapped a hand around Francis’s cock, cataloguing the choked-off noises that fell from Francis’s mouth as James jerked him once, twice, just to see how Francis would react. He was still overwhelmed by the thought of getting to do this, of touching Francis in this way. It was a precious thing, to feel Francis’s skin soft against his palm. Francis thrust into the tight grip of James’s fist, and James was struck by the expression on his face—open, unguarded, surprised, like he didn’t believe he was allowed such tenderness. 

Then he took Francis’s cock in his mouth.

The shout Francis gave was delightful. James hummed, pleased with himself, and Francis’s drawn-out moan tapered off into a whimper. His hand flew to the top of James’s head, scrambling frantically through James’s unruly curls.

The stretch of Francis’s cock in his mouth was everything James could have dreamed of. He wondered how it would feel to have that cock stretch him open in other places, with Francis pinning him down into the mattress with all of his weight. The thought made him apply himself to the task of sucking Francis’s cock with all the more zeal, and he was rewarded for his efforts by the quickening of Francis’s breath and a sharp tugging sensation as his fingers caught on a snag in James’s hair. James moaned. Francis seized a good handful of hair and _pulled_ , and James could have blacked out then and there.

He let Francis’s cock slip from his mouth for a second and braced his forehead against Francis’s leg. “Yes, oh my God, _please_ do that again.”

He sucked the head of Francis’s cock back into his mouth just as Francis pulled again, and the throbbing of his own arousal became near painful. He twisted his tongue, moving it along the sensitive spot under the head of Francis’s cock.

“James—" Francis caught himself, slapping a hand over his mouth. “That’s good, _yes_.”

James did it again, and Francis’s hips bucked up weakly. James moved with it easily, helping Francis settled down on the bed before settling into a rhythm of alternating between suckling at the head and taking Francis deep until he could feel him at the back of his throat. Francis went entirely incoherent at that.

James savoured the knowledge that as Francis neared his orgasm, he began panting out little staccato moans. James could have listened to that and nothing else for the rest of his life and died a happy man. Francis’s grip on his hair tightened, his body went rigid, and then James felt warmth flooding down his throat as Francis shook and shook and shook under him. James held him through it, pulling off slowly only when Francis was done. He flopped down on the bed next to Francis, who was drawing in great, heaving gulps of air. After a while where he seemed incapable of anything but breathing, Francis turned to James with a grin.

“My turn.”

If James had thought sucking Francis’s cock was exciting, it hadn’t prepared him for the moment Francis descended upon him with hungry hands and a desire to touch every inch of James. His hand found James’s nipple and rolled it between his fingers, and James arched into the touch, feeling a flush cover his cheeks and chest.

“Gorgeous,” Francis mumbled, so quietly James wasn’t sure he was even aware that he was speaking, “Your bloody arms and your hair and the way you smell.” He buried his face in James’s neck, even as he reached down with one hand and wrapped it around James’s cock. James’s hips bucked—uselessly, with Francis’s weight keeping him pinned to the mattress. James let his head fall back, revelling in the sensation. It almost made him feel greedy for asking, but— “Do you have lube?”

Francis met his eyes. James swallowed.

There was a bit of rearranging so Francis could reach the nightstand, then again so that they could both settle on the bed. Francis seemed incapable of not kissing every inch of James he could reach, which slowed their progress somewhat. Finally, James was lying on his back again, Francis nestled in the crook of his arm.

Francis’s fingers skated across James’s stomach, making James squirm and twist under him. His giggles tapered out into something breathless when Francis seized his cock with a firm hand and stroked him once, twice, leaving James arching his back and gasping. Francis hid his smile in James’s neck, placing a gentle kiss there before lubing up one finger and settling it gently at James’s entrance. James took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded.

Francis didn’t even blink as he pushed his finger into James. His eyes remained on James as though he wanted to catalogue even the most miniscule of reactions. James couldn’t imagine a more intense emotion than being watched by Francis while Francis touched him gently, but with purpose—his entire being seemed centred on Francis in a way that was natural, not at all strange. Perhaps they had always moved towards this: magnets who couldn’t understand their attraction because their south poles were turned to each other suddenly snapping together.

James hissed as Francis added a second finger. He felt about ready to come apart under Francis’s attention. He moaned when Francis leaned forward to kiss him, licking deeply into James’s mouth.

“Could you come like this?” Francis murmured. He punctured his words with a particularly well-aimed jab of his fingers and James whined. “I think you could.” Francis grinned, and before James had a chance to gather his breath, added a third finger. James felt himself coming apart at the fringes at the feeling of stretch and pressure.

“I need—" he whined. “Please, Francis, touch me.”

Francis thrust in his fingers a little harder at that, and James cried out. Just as he began to fear that Francis would keep on torturing him like this, keeping him teetering on the edge of pleasure without granting him relief, Francis pulled out his fingers. Before James could mourn their loss, he had wrapped his slick hand around James’s cock. James only had the wherewithal to slap a hand over his mouth to stifle a broken cry and then he was coming, painting Francis’s hand and his chest with great stripes. Francis worked him through it, and though James had closed his eyes, he felt Francis’s gaze on him.

After a while, James recovered enough to roll over and kiss Francis soundly. When he pulled back, Francis had his nose scrunched up in the cutest way. “I think I need a nap.”

“Do you, old man?” James poked him in the side, then drew back when he realised how sticky they both were. “Maybe a shower is in order first.”

Francis kissed him again. “Why don’t you join me, Dr Fitzjames?”

* * *

The afternoon light filtered through Francis’s blinds. He woke slowly, the memory of the morning coming back to him in a jumble of images that seemed to belong to a different man. He would have considered it a dream if it weren’t for the fact that James was still in his bed, naked and sprawled out. He stirred when Francis began to shift, blinking lazily up at Francis. The grin on his face looked blissed out.

“So that wasn’t a dream.”

Francis snorted, although he’d had the same thought. “Obviously.”

James looked shy, which wasn’t a look that Francis had ever pictured on James’s face. He felt the familiar hesitancy creep up—this was a bad idea, James didn’t want him—but then James leaned forward to kiss him and, alright, maybe it wasn’t just a fluke.

“Just to be clear, I do still need your help with my thesis,” James said, “I didn’t make that up for a booty call.”

“I didn’t think you did,” Francis said. The idea that someone might invent a pretext to come see him was even wilder. When James stood, crossing over the room to locate his shirt, Francis noticed a blur of colour on his hip. He lifted his head, curiosity piqued.

“Is that a tattoo?”

James twisted around to see what Francis was looking at. He looked flushed, either bed-warm or a little embarrassed, and Francis found both possibilities incredibly endearing.

“Hm? That? Oh, yes.” He smoothed a hand over the skin. With him still, Francis could finally get a look at it. It was a bird, with dark wings spread out over the expanse of James’s hip and a colourless neck ending in a long tubenose.

“It’s an albatross,” James explained. “Got it after I got my bachelor’s degree.”

“Come here,” Francis said, then blushed. Maybe he was being too forward—what if James didn’t want to stay? What if he thought he'd made a mistake? Francis just felt so deliriously happy with the light filtering in through the balcony window, the two of them sheltered in the little alcove that held the bed, that he wanted to draw it out for as long as possible.

“Let me get a t-shirt.”

The knot of worry in Francis’s chest unspooled. James grabbed a t-shirt off the floor—Francis’s shirt. And didn’t that give Francis something to think about, the memory of finally touching James, of peeling back every layer and discovering new wonders wherever he went—and came back to the bed. He laid on his stomach, the t-shirt pulled up so Francis could look at the tattoo.

The lines were incredibly fine, though the ink had bled in the intervening years. Francis wanted to trace them, and then he did—hesitantly. James didn’t pull back.

“It’s beautiful.”

“It was my first tattoo,” James said. It was odd, seeing him uncomfortable with receiving attention—he only seemed to really enjoy being praised when he set the limits of what he was being admired for.

“Did it hurt?”

James scrunched up his face. “You know, everybody always asks that.”

“I’m sorry,” Francis said automatically.

“No, it’s alright, it’s just funny.” James shook his head. “I don’t think I can describe the sensation to someone who’s never gotten a tattoo. It’s different because you know there will be pain, and you can prepare yourself for it. And it feels good, knowing you can last through it.” He looked at Francis, then, a self-conscious smile on his face. “I have more. Do you want to see?”

Francis wanted to see every part of James. He wanted to learn him inside and out.

“I would like that.”

James pulled up his leg and showed Francis his calf. On it was the figure of a man, stylized, holding a walking stick, a halo around his head.

“Who is that?” Francis asked, finding himself once again reaching out and tracing the lines. Someone had taken a needle to James here, and James had let them. It was a strange thought.

“Saint Christopher.”

“Are you Catholic?” Francis, asked, surprised, but James laughed and shook his head.

“No, but I liked the image. It’s a sailor’s tattoo. He’s the saint of travellers and mariners. I got it when I was on Erasmus in Portugal.” He laughed again. “I was very enamoured with the idea of travelling back then. I wanted to go back home by train, see Europe. I fancied myself an explorer. But really, I was just a third-semester student with a backpack who didn’t shower enough.”

Francis knew the type. He could picture James, his hair a little longer, maybe trying to grow out a beard, talking to people about the _European experience_. “You must have been insufferable.”

“Some say I still am,” James said, and winked before he leaned in and put a hand on Francis’s cheek. He pressed a kiss to Francis’s lips.

Maybe this was a man for whom Francis wasn’t too much, either. James had stuck with him through most of the project, after all, and this was far more pleasant than their endless meetings.

“Did you go back by train?” Francis asked when they broke apart after some minutes.

“What? Oh, no.” James shook his head. “I didn’t have the money for an interrail ticket and the hostels. And the semester here was starting.”

“Pity.”

“Did you go on Erasmus?”

Francis nodded. “Five months in Lapland. In the winter, too.”

His mind flashed back to Ross in the kitchen. _Do you remember Lapland?_ A reminder, now, not to ruin a good thing because he felt he didn’t deserve it.

“Francis Crozier, arctic explorer,” James teased.

“I claimed to be nothing of the sort,” Francis replied indignantly. But the grin on James’s face was infectious for how unguarded it was on his face. Nothing like the mask of stress and worry that had marred James’s face over the last months.

Francis leaned forward to kiss him again.


	12. Epilogue

**July 2019**

It was a rather uneventful moment. Francis wondered if he should have brought something—a bottle of champagne, perhaps—but the half empty bottle of whiskey in the cabinet under his desk would have to do, just as it had for the last ten years whenever Francis found cause to celebrate a piece of paper.

Next to Francis, James placed his signature on the document with a flourish.

“There,” he said, “just needs your signature.”

Francis took the document from James. Their fingers brushed—warm, welcome—which still made Francis smile. He scanned the writing, but in truth he’d read in so many times over the last weeks that the words and numbers had lost their meaning. He signed the damn thing.

“Done,” he said. Before he could reach for the bottle of whiskey, James placed a hand on Francis’s cheek and tilted it so James could kiss him deeply—sweeter than any whiskey Francis could have offered in celebration.

“Now you’re officially free of me,” James said when they parted. Francis balked, and James swatted at him lovingly. “I’m joking.” He leaned back in his seat. “Jesus. Three years. Feels like thirty at least.”

Francis wouldn’t disagree with that. “You know we technically still have to hand in the paperwork before it’s official, right?”

It was done. It had taken blood, sweat, tears, and a little bit of their sanity, but they had finally wrapped up all the paperwork that had still been lying around. The Franklin cluster, such as it still could be called that, was no more.

“Don’t spoil the moment,” James said. Francis felt the relief he saw on his face. Still, there was one thing on his mind.

“I’m going to miss it.”

“The cluster?” James said incredulously.

“Working with you,” Francis responded, and James scoffed. “You hated working with me most of the time.”

“It had its perks in the end,” Francis said with a smile.

 _Terror_ was mostly empty, even though the semester still had two weeks to go. Around this time, the majority of students were sweating in the library, while most of Francis’s department was busy double-checking the exam. Little and Irving had spent twenty-three minutes of the last department meeting debating how difficult the questions should be. Francis had counted them.

“How is the analysis going?” Francis asked as he and James made their way towards the French café, where Henry Peglar was working a summer job before the start of his PhD. Bridgens was loitering around at a table in the back, once more trying to fix his old laptop.

“You know, I came across some questions regarding the software. I think we need to discuss them in _excruciating_ detail later. I hope you didn’t have any plans tonight, Professor Crozier.”

“I’m sure I can find time,” Francis said. Peglar had already begun preparing their orders. Francis picked up a soda to go with it. James leaned into his personal space as they waited for their coffees. “I have a surprise for you.”

“Do you?” Francis asked, one eyebrow raised.

James just smiled enigmatically. “Take a walk with me.”

James led them the short walk to the administrative building, iced coffee clutched in one hand, the other tangled with Francis’s. It was pleasantly cool in the shade of the old trees, their leaves rustling quietly in the wind. Inside the building, the air was stuffy. It smelled of coffee and printer ink. James led them to a glass case with announcements.

“They posted the new calls for professors yesterday,” James whispered. “I thought I spied a familiar name.”

Francis squinted at the case suspiciously. He was half sure Sophia would have called him, but maybe she just hadn’t thought of it. James was right—there it was, in black and white: _Junprof. Dr. Francis Crozier received the call for the position of Professor for Data Science._

“I have to call Jopson,” Francis said. It was the first thing that came to his mind, probably because all the other implications were too large to process.

James squeezed his hand. “He already knows.”

Francis turned to James, who kept smiling like words could not express how proud he was.

“Oh my God,” Francis said. “I have to sit down.”

James laughed, but he helped Francis settle down on a bench in the hallway. “Do I need to get the smelling salts?”

For that, Francis elbowed him in the side. “You wanted to shock me. You could have just told me!”

“You wouldn’t have believed me,” James said. He had a point there. “Thought it would do you good to see it.”

“Thank you,” Francis mumbled. Then he kissed James. There were tears in his eyes that might have been tears of relief, of gratitude, or from the sheer overwhelming fact that it had been worth it in the end. But the greatest gift wasn’t the innocuous piece of paper, framed pristinely in a glass case a few feet away. It was the man sitting on the bench with Francis, still smiling into their kiss. Francis squeezed James’s hands, tangled with his own. James squeezed back.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Glossary**  
>  _PD:_ 'Privatdozent', indicates that the person in question has the permission to teach at a university without a professorship  
>  _habilitation thesis_ 'Habilitation' is what they make you write in German-speaking countries after you write your dissertation but before you get to become a full professor
> 
>  **Other pairings**  
>  \- Jopson and Little are having the office romance rom com of their dreams in the background but Francis and James are too caught up in their own drama to notice  
> \- James Ross and Francis dated for two exciting semesters but they’re just friends now  
> \- Bridgens and Peglar are dating but their professors don’t care about their private lives
> 
>  **Warnings**  
>  \- there is one makeout scene where consent is not negotiated beforehand but both parties are into it (they’re just bad at communicating)  
> \- John Franklin has a stroke at some point  
> \- James has panic attacks on two separate occasions
> 
> Let me thank you for reading this. It truly was a labour of love. If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving me a comment. You can also find me on tumblr at [veganthranduil](https://veganthranduil.tumblr.com/). And don't forget to check out the [ART](https://vandrawsing.tumblr.com/post/627886033748557824).


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